Controversial lawyer Karim Achoui was sentenced Monday to an 18,000 euro daily fine for continuing to practice his profession illegally in 2015-2016, even though the courts had definitively disbarred him from the bar in France, notably for “
ethical breaches.” »
.
Achoui, who was accused of having pleaded six times before French courts, will have to pay 5,000 euros for moral damage to the council of the Bar Association, civil party.
He will also have to pay a 150 day fine of 120 euros, which, if not paid, could result in prison.
He immediately announced his intention to appeal this conviction.
Before the Paris criminal court, the 56-year-old lawyer, known for having defended figures of organized crime, argued that he had registered in February 2015 with the Algiers bar, almost three years after his dismissal. definitive in France.
According to him, he should therefore benefit from a Franco-Algerian convention of 1962 which stipulates that lawyers
“registered with an Algerian bar”
can practice in France
“under the same conditions as lawyers registered with a French bar”
.
For the court, however, this agreement aims to
“allow one-off activity in France for Algerian lawyers”
and not to
“organize the continuation of his activities in France by a former French lawyer who has been permanently disbarred in France”
.
“An Algerian lawyer disbarred in France cannot have more rights than a French lawyer banned from practicing”
, also estimated the court, for which Achoui, as a
“professional informed of the law”
,
“could not have been unaware that he was circumventing deliberately”
its removal.
Also found guilty of breach of trust
In addition to the illegal exercise of the profession of lawyer, the criminal court also found him guilty of breach of trust, in a case relating to a sum of around 10,000 euros paid by one of his clients, explained to AFP the defender of Achoui, Me Christian Saint-Palais.
This sum was initially intended to pay bail to free the client's brother, detained in Thailand.
The deposit having ultimately not been paid, the client felt robbed because the money had only been partially returned to her.
Achoui, for his part, argued that the amount he had kept corresponded to his fees.
Karim Achoui, victim of an assassination attempt in 2007, saw his name linked to several criminal cases, including that of the escape in 2003 of the robber Antonio Ferrara: suspected of complicity, he was sentenced to seven years in prison , but was acquitted on appeal in 2010.