Rogue trader: No return to France

Convicted rogue trader Jerome Kerviel yesterday said he would stay in Italy rather than report to a French police station as required to start serving a three-year jail sentence.

Kerviel, 37, said he was appealing to French president François Hollande to intervene in his case. He has spent over three years fighting charges stemming from massive market bets that almost brought French bank Societe Generale to the brink of collapse in 2008.

He has been convicted of breach of trust, forgery and fraudulent data manipulation. He embarked on a march on foot from Rome to Paris earlier this year, meeting the Pope and portraying his case as one individual’s struggle against high finance.

French judges required him to report to a French police station by yesterday evening to start serving his sentence, which was confirmed by France’s highest appeals court in March.

“I am staying here for now, waiting for the president to respond,” Kerviel told reporters in the town of Ventimiglia. He said he was not guilty and his criminal conviction was unfair.

Reuters