Said Bouteflika, younger brother of the late ex-president Abdelaziz Bouteflika, was sentenced Tuesday evening October 12 to two years in prison by an Algerian court for
"obstructing the proper conduct of justice,"
said the official APS agency .
Read also Algeria: the discreet death of Abdelaziz Bouteflika
The prosecution had required seven years firm against Abdelaziz Bouteflika who appeared before the criminal court of Dar El Beida, east of Algiers where he was prosecuted with other former officials for
"incitement to falsify official documents"
,
" abuse of office ”
,
“ obstruction of justice ”
,
“ incitement to partiality of justice ”
and
“ contempt of court ”
.
The main accused in this trial is the former justice minister Tayeb Louh.
He was sentenced to six years in prison while the former boss of the bosses, businessman Ali Haddad, was sentenced to two years, the agency said.
The former Inspector General of the Ministry of Justice, Tayeb Belhachemi, was also sentenced to two years in prison.
The court acquitted six other defendants.
Read also Abdelaziz Bouteflika, a worn-out president, flabbergasted by the popular mobilization
Saïd Bouteflika, 63, was arrested in May 2019 along with three co-accused and sentenced in September of the same year to 15 years' imprisonment in a flash trial before a military court for
"conspiracy against the army"
, who then publicly demanded the departure of President Bouteflika to get out of the crisis born of the Hirak, the anti-regime protest movement. On January 2, 2021, a military appeals court acquitted Said Bouteflika, but being under a committal warrant for
“influence peddling”
, he was transferred from a military prison to a civilian prison.
Said Bouteflika was the influential adviser to his brother Abdelaziz, who died on September 17.
Cited in other cases under investigation, such as the financing of the campaign of the aborted 5th term, he should remain in prison even having already served the two-year sentence imposed on him on Tuesday.
Read also Algeria: Abdelaziz Bouteflika was buried this Sunday in the square of the heroes of the war of independence
Since the forced resignation of Abdelaziz Bouteflika at the beginning of April 2019, under the pressure of the demonstrations of the Hirak and the army, the Algerian justice has placed in preventive detention or sentenced several political leaders as well as powerful businessmen close to him, in particular for acts of corruption.
