Ex-Algeria PM Sentenced to 12 Years for Corruption

Former Algerian Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia surrounded by guards after being allowed to attend his brother's funeral on Monday (AFP)
Former Algerian Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia surrounded by guards after being allowed to attend his brother's funeral on Monday (AFP)
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Ex-Algeria PM Sentenced to 12 Years for Corruption

Former Algerian Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia surrounded by guards after being allowed to attend his brother's funeral on Monday (AFP)
Former Algerian Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia surrounded by guards after being allowed to attend his brother's funeral on Monday (AFP)

Former Algerian Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia faces a new severe prison sentence, the second in a matter of months, after being convicted in a corruption case linked to a business tycoon.

An Algerian court issued a verdict on Wednesday on the car assembly plant case involving Ouyahia and Abdelmalek Sellal, former ministers and businessmen.

Last year, a court jailed Ouyahia, who served four times as prime minister under former President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, for 15 years and Sellal, who served twice as prime minister, to 12 years in another corruption case.

The cases are linked to the car assembly industry in the north African country and illegal financing of Bouteflika’s election campaign.

The court issued a 12-year prison sentence against Ouyahia, and a 3-year sentence and a fine against former industry minister Youcef Yousfi, announcing his innocence of the charge of bribery.

The court also issued a 20-year sentence, a fine, and an arrest warrant against former industry minister Abdeslam Bouchouareb.

Mourad Eulmi, the head of the Algerian family-owned firm SOVAC which runs an assembly plant with Germany’s Volkswagen AG, was convicted and given a 10-year imprisonment.

The court case included “money laundering”, “smuggling public money abroad”, “evading the payment of taxes,” “granting loans from government banks out of interest to a businessman”, and “adapting the government job to a private interest.”

When questioned by the judge, Ouyahia defended himself by saying that all policies in the field of industrial investment, especially the activity of installing cars, were developed by former President Bouteflika, and that he was only the executor of those policies.

He added that he used to report daily to Bouteflilka about government works.



US Eases Restrictions on Syria While Keeping Sanctions in Place

 A worker stands at a bakery after the ousting of Syria's Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, January 6, 2025. (Reuters)
A worker stands at a bakery after the ousting of Syria's Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, January 6, 2025. (Reuters)
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US Eases Restrictions on Syria While Keeping Sanctions in Place

 A worker stands at a bakery after the ousting of Syria's Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, January 6, 2025. (Reuters)
A worker stands at a bakery after the ousting of Syria's Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, January 6, 2025. (Reuters)

The US on Monday eased some restrictions on Syria's transitional government to allow the entry of humanitarian aid after opposition factions ousted Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad last month.

The US Treasury issued a general license, lasting six months, that authorizes certain transactions with the Syrian government, including some energy sales and incidental transactions.

The move does not lift sanctions on the nation that has been battered by more than a decade of war, but indicates a limited show of US support for the new transitional government.

The general license underscores America's commitment to ensuring its sanctions “do not impede activities to meet basic human needs, including the provision of public services or humanitarian assistance,” a Treasury Department statement reads.

Since Assad's ouster, representatives from the nation's new de facto authorities have said that the new Syria will be inclusive and open to the world.

The US has gradually lifted some penalties since Assad departed Syria for protection in Russia. The Biden administration in December decided to drop a $10 million bounty it had offered for the capture of Ahmed al-Sharaa, the leader of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group whose forces led the ouster of Assad last month.

The announcement followed a meeting in Damascus between al-Sharaa, who was once aligned with al-Qaeda, and the top US diplomat for the Middle East, Barbara Leaf, who led the first US diplomatic delegation into Syria since Assad’s ouster. The US and UN have long designated HTS as a terrorist organization.

HTS led a lightning insurgency that ousted Assad on Dec. 8 and ended his family’s decades-long rule. From 2011 until Assad’s downfall, Syria’s uprising and civil war killed an estimated 500,000 people.

Much of the world ended diplomatic relations with Assad because of his crackdown on protesters, and sanctioned him and his Russian and Iranian associates.

Syria’s infrastructure has been battered, with power cuts rampant in the country and some 90% of its population living in poverty. About half the population won’t know where its next meal will come from, as inflation surges.

The pressure to lift sanctions has mounted in recent years as aid agencies continue to cut programs due to donor fatigue and a massive 2023 earthquake that rocked Syria and Türkiye. The tremor killed over 59,000 people and destroyed critical infrastructure that couldn’t be fixed due to sanctions and overcompliance, despite the US announcing some humanitarian exemptions.