Prosecuted for abuse of office and interference in the work of justice in the context of the cancellation of the arrest warrants and the proceedings launched against Chakib Khelil, Saïd Bouteflika benefited from an acquittal. The decryption of a case at the heart of a political-judicial scandal that has dragged on since the summer of 2013.
One less conviction in the judicial maelstrom through Saïd Bouteflika, brother of the former head of state and ex-advisor to the presidency. The Algiers Criminal Court of Appeal pronounced his acquittal on May 24 when he was accused of “abuse of office” and “interference in the work of justice” related to the judicial file of the former Energy Minister Chakib Khelil, now on the run in the United States.
Prosecuted in the same case, Tayeb Louh, Minister of Justice between 2013 and 2019, received a two-year prison sentence and a fine of 200,000 DA (about 1,900 euros).
During this appeal trial, the prosecutor respectively requested 5 years in prison against the first defendant and 10 years against the second. The former Secretary-General of the Ministry of Justice Laadjil Zouaoui, currently General Counsel to the Supreme Court, as well as the former President of the Court of Algiers, Mokhtar Bel Haradj, were acquitted of the same charges.
To understand the genesis of the Chakib Khelil affair, we must go back to August 12, 2013. On that day, Belkacem Zeghmati, public prosecutor at the court of Algiers, announced that international arrest warrants had been issued against Chakib Khelil, his wife, their two children, as well as several other people in the context of the so-called Sonatrach 2 affair.
Abdelaziz Bouteflika instructs Saïd to follow the case
The former Minister of Energy and personal friend of Abdelaziz Bouteflika was then prosecuted for “corruption, money laundering, the conclusion of contracts contrary to the regulations, abuse of power and formation of organized criminal gangs”.
The arrest warrants, as well as the legal proceedings initiated against Chakib Khelil and his family anger the head of state, who returned a month earlier from Paris after a long hospitalization to treat a stroke that left him severely disabled.
The ex-president’s response to what he sees as a personal attack and insult to his childhood friend will come in several stages. Two months after the announcement of the issuance of these arrest warrants, the Minister of Justice, Mohamed Charfi, was dismissed to be replaced by Tayeb Louh, a soldier loyal to the presidential family. The Keeper of the Seals is then instructed by Bouteflika to manage this file.
Objective: to cancel the arrest warrants, terminate the proceedings and punish the people responsible for the legal harassment of Khelil and the members of his family. Powerful adviser to the presidency, Saïd Bouteflika is personally charged by his brother to follow this affair, in coordination with Tayeb Louh.
After the dismissal of Charfi, Belkacem Zeghmati, as well as the judge who investigated this case will be sanctioned in turn. In September 2015, Belkacem Zeghmati was sacked before being appointed a year later deputy prosecutor at the Supreme Court. The experienced magistrate is transferred to a court in the interior of the country. What about Chakib Khelil? In March 2016, the latter made his triumphant return to Algeria.
Two years later, the investigating judge of the 9th chamber of the specialized criminal center near the court of Sidi M’Hamed in Algiers canceled the arrest warrants, as well as all the legal proceedings initiated against Khelil, his wife, and their two children. Who ordered their extinction and who was in charge of carrying them out?
Before the judge of the Algiers Criminal Court of Appeal, Saïd Bouteflika explains that he was instructed by the president to follow this file and “not to give orders”.
“I was condemned for my silence”
He claims to have been in constant contact, via SMS, with Chakib Khelil since his American exile, that this denier is a friend of the family and that there is no element in the file that would prove his interference and his interference in the context of the annulment of the charges against Khelil and his family. He accuses the former army chief of staff and deputy defense minister, Ahmed Gaïd Salah, of being the cause of his legal troubles and of having offended the Bouteflika family.
“I was condemned for my silence, he argues at the bar. Journalists often defamed me even though I did not know them. They write that the arrest warrants were canceled on the orders of the president and his brother. I did not say that he canceled the arrest warrants, but that he instructed me to follow the file after having entrusted it to the Minister of Justice. »
In his defense, Tayeb Louh explains that the Head of State mentioned before him an error in the Khelil file, but that he never ordered him to proceed with the extinction of the proceedings or to have a dismissal pronounced. . “Chakib Khelil had benefited from the cancellation of the mandate in 2013, but I protected the judge and the public prosecutor who were at the origin of these errors, he argues in court. I didn’t want to harm them. Today, these people are free and Tayeb Louh is in prison.”
Shadow areas
In turn, the former Keeper of the Seals accuses Gaïd Salah of having used justice to settle personal scores with him on the grounds that Louh would have carried out investigations against the children of the former boss of the army.
The case is now being judged, this trial has not however removed all the mysteries of this affair which has been in the political and judicial chronicle since the summer of 2013. At the stand, three important witnesses could have contributed to the manifestation of the truth.
The first is Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who died in September 2021. Justice has never seen fit to summon him. The second is Chakib Khelil. On the run in the United States since April 2019, he is still beyond the reach of judges today. The third is Belkacem Zeghmati. Minister of Justice between April 2019 and July 2021, he is now Ambassador to the Czech Republic.
