Rogue trader Kerviel freed with electronic bracelet
Rogue trader Jérôme Kerviel, imprisoned for losing French bank Société Générale nearly five billion euros, is to be freed under electronic surveillance next week.
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The Paris appeals court said Kerviel can be released from Fleury Mérogis prison just outside the capital as long as he wears an electronic bracelet.
Convicted in 2010 of breach of trust, forgery and entering false data in relation to unauthorised trades, he was originally sentenced to three years in prison and a fine of 4.9 billion euros.
An appeals court overturned the order to pay back the bank and when he leaves prison next Monday Kerviel will have spent just 150 days behind bars.
“He will leave Fleury Mérogis prison on Monday and will resume a completely normal life,” said his lawyer David Koubbi. “As he’s already said, he’ll be devoting a large part of his free time to helping his fellow citizens both here in France and abroad.”
The commitment to do some form of civic service was part of the agreement reached with the courts to secure Kerviel's conditional release from prison.
While he will have to wear the electronic tagging bracelet at all times and will not be allowed to leave his small Paris apartment between 8.30pm and 7.00am, his lawyer claims there a dozen or so potential employers lining up to get Kerviel on their books.
Kerviel became a kind of cause célèbre in France, winning support from prominent left-wingers and leading figures in the Catholic church, who believe he has been unfairly scapegoated for the wider failings of the banking system.
Kerviel himself has said he was a jerk and now feels ashamed to have been part of this system.
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