The verdict in the corruption trial of former Energy Minister Chakib Khelil was handed down on Monday 14 February. The former man from the Algerian hydrocarbons sector, on the run abroad, was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Other former executives in the sector, including the former CEO of Sonatrach Mohamed Meziane, were also sentenced for having notably favored the Italian company Saipem in the awarding of a contract for the construction of a refinery in Arzew (Oran).
Also sentenced to a heavy fine of 192 million euros, the Italian company specializing in research and oil drilling, announced on Tuesday, February 15 that it would appeal the verdict.
Payment of the fine was suspended after the appeal, she told Reuters. Two employees of the Italian energy services group, Gilbert Bulato, and Massimo Gallipoli Stealont, were sentenced in the same case to 5 and 6 years in prison and a third was acquitted.
This is not the first time that the Italian company has been condemned for acts of corruption in connection with its activities in Algeria.
In September 2018, a court in Milan sentenced former Saipem CEO Pietro Tali to four years and nine months in prison and the company to a fine and confiscation of property worth €197 million, taken as the value of the bribes paid.
The case concerned the payment of 198 million euros in bribes to Algerian officials to obtain contracts in the gas sector worth 9 billion euros.
Quoted in the case, Chakib Khelil was not convicted. It is this same case that had earned him the launch by the Algerian justice of an arrest warrant against him in 2013. The warrant will however be canceled and the proceedings abandoned.
