Rogue trader Jerome Kerviel was released on parole Monday after serving four months of a three-year prison sentence for his role in a scandal that cost France’s second-biggest bank 4.9 billion euros (6.4 billion dollars).
Kerviel, who was jailed for unauthorized trades while employed at Societe Generale, was released on the condition that he wear an electronic bracelet until June 2015.
The 37-year-old former banker was jailed in May after losing all his appeals against a 2010 conviction for breach of trust, forgery and entering false data.
After exhausting the appeals process, Kerviel asked for his sentence to be reduced to a non-custodial punishment.
Kerviel claims his innocence and says his former bosses at Societe Generale knew and tolerated what he was doing as long as he was making them money. He is the only person to have been charged in the affair.
The taciturn Brittany native is a divisive figure in France. Some consider Kerviel a symbol of the rampant speculation that triggered the global financial crisis of 2008-09 while others see him as the scapegoat for an immoral banking system.
GNA
