Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy was found guilty of illegal campaign financing over his failed 2012 re-election bid by a Paris court on Thursday.
It was the second guilty verdict this year for Sarkozy, who led France from 2007 to 2012 and retains influence among conservatives despite falling from grace over his legal woes.
The court was yet to say what sentence he would receive.
Prosecutors were seeking a one-year prison sentence, half of it suspended, for the 66-year old former president. He is in any case unlikely to go to jail immediately as he would be expected to appeal the sentence.
His conservative party, the prosecutors said, spent nearly double the 22.5 million euros (currently $19.2 million) allowed under electoral law on extravagant campaign rallies and then hired a friendly public relations agency to hide the cost.
Sarkozy has denied wrongdoing. He told the court in June that he had not been involved in the logistics of his campaign for a second term as president nor in how money was spent during the election run-up.
U.S. President Donald Trump fired General Timothy Haugh as director of the National Security Agency on Thursday, according to two officials familiar with the decision, and congressional Democrats denounced the removal of the nonpartisan official from a top security post.
Israel stepped up airstrikes on Syria, declaring the attacks a warning to the new rulers in Damascus as it accused their ally Turkey of trying to turn the country into a Turkish protectorate.
The Trump administration moved forward with the sale of more than 20,000 US-made assault rifles to Israel last month, according to a document seen by Reuters, pushing ahead with a sale that the administration of former president Joe Biden had delayed.
The Ministry of Justice said seven companies reportedly based in the UAE and sanctioned by the United States for ties to Sudan do not operate in the country.
Dubai Police announced on Friday it arrested 222 beggars during Ramadan and Eid, after a campaign was launched under the slogan “An Aware Society, Free of Begging,” in partnership with other government entities.