Algerian court jails brother of ex-president Bouteflika for 8 years

By Abdelrazzak bin Abdullah
ALGIERS, Algeria (AA) – An Algerian court on Monday sentenced the brother of former President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to eight years in prison for corruption, according to the official Algeria Press Service.

Said Bouteflika was convicted of issuing secret funding for a presidential election campaign that was cancelled in 2019.

The Sidi M'hamed court in the capital Algiers also slapped Said Bouteflika with a fine of 3 million dinars (about $20,000) and the confiscation of all of Said Bouteflika's properties.

The court also slapped a former businessman close to the presidency, Ali Haddad, with a four-year jail term and the same fine in the case.

Monday’s rulings are preliminary and can be appealed by higher judicial bodies.

The case, according to previous statements by the Public Prosecution, concerns the transfer of funds abroad in 2019 to establish a TV channel to support Bouteflika's candidacy for election that was scheduled for April 2019 and was then canceled due to a popular uprising.

Said Bouteflika, 66, the younger brother of the former Algerian president, had joined the presidency in 1999, and emerged as an influential and powerful man after Bouteflika's health deteriorated in 2011.

He was arrested in May 2019 on accusations of undermining the army’s authority and conspiring against the state. He was acquitted in that case in 2021 and was acquitted again in May in another case in which he faced a charge of "disrupting the work of the judiciary" during the period of his brother's rule.