A court in Algiers sentenced on Wednesday two former ministers to jail on corruption charges.
Sidi M'hamed Court of Algiers sentenced former Minister of Finance Mohamed Loukal to six years in prison and a fine in Algerian dinar and ordered lifting seizure on all his seized assets upon the examining magistrate’s order.
The court sentenced in absentia the fugitive, A.A., to 10 years in prison and a fine. It issued a warrant for his arrest and ordered seizing all his assets.
On August 3, the court’s public prosecutor ordered sentencing Loukal to 10 years in prison and a three million dinar fine, as well as seizing all his assets and bank accounts.
The verdicts issued against other convicts ranged between five and 10-year prison sentences and the seizure of all their assets, the local daily Echorouk reported.
The case was opened on December 2, 2018 when a letter signed on behalf of the managers of the Property Directorate at the General Directorate of the Exterior Bank of Algeria (BEA) addressed the anti-corruption judicial police.
The letter stated that Loukal received 30 billion centimes of bribery, in complicity with a number of the bank’s executives.
The court also charged Loukal of exploiting his position, squandering public funds, and concluding a deal in violation of legislative and regulatory provisions to grant unjustified privileges to others.
He was further accused of illegally acquiring interests from contracts signed by institutions, abuse of power, conflict of interest, as well as money laundering by transferring or concealing property or disguising its illegal source.
All these are among the acts stipulated and punished by the provisions of the anti-corruption law.
The same court also sentenced former minister of Solidarity Djamel Ould Abbes to three years in prison, with a fine of one million dinars and seizing all his assets.
He was acquitted of the misdemeanor of exploiting his position and was ordered to pay two million dinars to the public treasury and the Ministry of Solidarity.
