Nicolas Sarkozy will stand trial on Monday on charges of corruption over allegedly taking tens of millions of euros from Muammar Gaddafi in exchange for helping to rehabilitate the Libyan dictator.

It is alleged Mr Sarkozy received suitcases of cash in Switzerland to finance his successful 2007 French presidential campaign.

The 69-year-old Right-winger has been convicted in two cases. Last month, he began a one-year sentence at home with an ankle tag after a conviction for attempting to bribe a judge. He has also appealed against a one-year sentence for campaign finance offences in 2012 and is being investigated in connection with two more.

But the “Libyan affair” is considered the most explosive of them all. It is the first case since the Second World War in which a former French head of state has been charged with criminal conspiracy with a foreign government.

Mr Sarkozy faces a 10-year prison term if found guilty under the charges of concealing embezzlement of public funds and illegal campaign financing.

The inquiry began after Mediapart, an investigative website, published a document suggesting that Gaddafi had agreed to give Mr Sarkozy up to €50 million for his successful 2007 presidential election campaign.

Ziad Takieddine, a French-Lebanese arms dealer, told prosecutors that he had arranged for millions of dollars from Gaddafi to be paid to Mr Sarkozy for the electoral race.

Mr Takieddine, 74, is an uncle of Amal Clooney, the British lawyer who is George Clooney’s wife.

The prosecutors say the money was paid after Mr Sarkozy’s aides promised steps to end Libya’s international isolation after Tripoli was blamed for bombing attacks on Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988 over Lockerbie in Scotland and UTA Flight 772 in 1989 that killed hundreds of passengers.

According to the prosecutors, they promised to drop a French warrant against Gaddafi’s brother-in-law, Abdullah al-Senussi, who was convicted in his absence by a court in Paris of organising the UTA bombing, in which 170 people died.

After Mr Sarkozy was elected in 2007, he received Gaddafi with pomp in Paris, and the former strongman was even allowed to pitch a tent in the city centre. However, Mr Sarkozy later spearheaded international military action against his regime in 2011 along with David Cameron and Barack Obama, which led to the dictator being toppled and killed.