The convicted rogue trader, Jerome Kerviel, has begun a three year jail sentence in France after being arrested late on Sunday.<br /><br />He has spent years fighting charges stemming from massive market bets that nearly forced the closure of French bank Societe Generale in 2008.<br /><br />His detention comes after he crossed the border in France from Italy.<br />For several weeks, Kerviel has been walking from Rome to Paris in protest against the “tyranny of financial markets”.<br /><br />Kerviel had been required by French judges to report to a French police station by midnight to start serving his sentence, which was confirmed by France’s highest appeals court in March.<br /><br />But when questioned by journalists as to why he has chosen to return now Kerviel said, “For the simple and good reason that I was never on the run, I’ve never wanted to run. I always wanted to take responsibility.”<br /><br />Kerviel, 37, has never denied masking his 50-billion euro positions and maintains his bosses knew what he was doing.<br /><br />It has become a high-profile case in France where he has been depicted as a poor individual struggling against a massive corporation.<br /><br />Over the weekend, Kerviel appealed to the French President to give immunity to unnamed witnesses he said would be willing to testify in his favour against Societe Generale.
