A court in Algeria on Thursday upheld hefty prison sentences against two former prime ministers who served under ex-president Abdelaziz Bouteflika.
The judgement confirmed sentences of 15 years for Ahmed Ouyahia and 12 years for Abdelmalek Sellal, originally handed down in December 2019.
The two were convicted in a corruption trial focused on the country's auto sector and the covert financing of an aborted 2019 re-election bid by the ailing Bouteflika, who resigned in April that year amid mass protests.
The two men were retried after the supreme court in November annulled their earlier convictions following an appeal.
The automobile scandal, in which several businessmen were also convicted, cost the public purse an estimated 128 billion dinars (about $1 billion today).
Two former industry ministers, Mahdjoub Bedda and Youcef Yousfi, convicted in the same case, had their sentences reduced from 10 years each to two years and three years respectively.
Ali Haddad, a construction mogul and former head of Algeria's main employers' organization, saw his sentence reduced from seven years to four years, although he has been convicted in other cases.
Ouyahia was prime minister four times between 1995 and 2019. Sellal served for five years until 2017 and managed four of Bouteflika's election campaigns.
Their trial in December 2019 was the first in a series of high-profile corruption cases launched after Bouteflika resigned after 20 years at the helm.
