THREE inmates have been arrested for threatening to kill former French president Nicolas Sarkozy.
The men, who have not been identified, are fellow inmates of the 70-year-old man at La Santé, the Paris prison.
The police pounced on his cells after a video appeared on social networks in which the former head of state is subjected to macabre threats.
On Thursday, a spokesman for Paris prosecutors said: “Three inmates at the Santé prison were arrested after receiving threats upon the arrival of Nicolas Sarkozy.
“The prison administration carried out an administrative search of their cells and two phones were seized.”
The spokesman said a formal investigation had been opened into “death threats.”
Two police officers have now moved to the cell next to Sarkozy’s to look after him.
He was jailed on Tuesday after a five-year sentence for conspiring to accept laundered money from the late Libyan dictator Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.
After an hour a video appeared on the Internet in which a fellow prisoner shouts: “We know everything, Sarko… we know everything.” Give me back the billions of dollars.”
The Minister of the Interior, Laurent Núñez, ordered two agents of the VIP Protection Service, SDLP, to occupy the “cell next to that of the former president for 24 hours a day.”
Among those who shared one of the videos was National Rally politician Marine Le Pen.
She wrote: ‘I have no doubt that some must be delighted by this situation. But I want to believe that millions of French people feel, like me, disgust.
Mrs Le Pen herself is a convicted criminal facing four years in prison for embezzling millions from the European Parliament.
He has appealed the sentence, so he is free on bail until a sentence is handed down in his case.
Carla Bruni, Sarkozy’s third wife, has already visited Sarkozy in prison, after her lawyers confirmed that his nights there were “terrifying”.
One of the videos posted online refers to Sarkozy, and also to Ziad Takieddine, a former Lebanese arms dealer who died under mysterious circumstances earlier this year while fleeing accusations that he was the intermediary between Gaddafi and Sarkozy.
An unidentified inmate at La Santé shouts: ‘Sarko, he is there, in an isolated area. He is completely alone in his cell.
‘And we know everything: we are going to avenge Gaddafi. We know everything, Sarko, Ziad Takieddine, we know everything. Give me back the billions of dollars.”
It was in 2011 that RAF and French Air Force planes led the massive bombing campaign that ended with Gaddafi being hacked to death by a mob.
David Cameron was then British Prime Minister and visited Libya with Sarkozy.
There have been claims that Sarkozy wanted his old friend and ally dead because of his potential to produce incriminating evidence.
Sarkozy was convicted of accepting millions in illegal cash from Gaddafi to win office over five years, between 2007 and 2012.
He is currently serving a five-year sentence, but has also been convicted of two previous offences, while facing further criminal investigations.
Sarkozy is now the first French head of state to go to a prison cell since wartime Nazi collaborator Marshal Philippe Pétain.
Sarkozy spends most of his time alone in a 29-square-foot cell equipped with a shower, a bed, a small desk, a landline telephone and a television, which will cost him the equivalent of £13 a month to view.
He is allowed one solitary walk a day, alone, in a small courtyard, but he does not have a mobile phone.
Sarkozy used to be Interior Minister in France, when his tough policies earned him the nickname “Le Top Cop.”
He once claimed that the “scum” of young criminals on housing estates should be “eliminated with an electric hose”.
This background makes him an extremely vulnerable prisoner.
Christophe Ingrain, a lawyer for Sarkozy, said he was appealing against having to go to prison, but it will be at least a month before the appeal is heard.
Mr Ingrain said: “He is taking it upon himself to ensure that no one can feel the outrage and anger that he feels at suffering this injustice.” Humanly, this is an extremely difficult test.
Sarkozy has also been found guilty of attempting to bribe a judge and financing illicit campaigns, following separate trials.
Carla Bruni herself is accused of being part of a £4 million campaign called “Operation Save Sarko”, a complex and illegal scheme to try to keep her husband out of jail.
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She has been charged with a series of corruption offences, including “witness tampering in an organized gang”, and could be sentenced to up to 10 years in prison if convicted in a separate trial.
Like her husband, Bruni denies any wrongdoing.
