The incarceration of former ministers resumes. After the wave of 2019 where many former senior politicians were arrested and imprisoned, investigations into grand corruption continue.
Among them two former prime ministers Ahmed Ouyahia and Abdelmalek Sellal, and twenty ministers, some of whom have been heavily convicted of corruption.
Thursday, a former minister of the government of Abdelaziz Djerad was imprisoned, a first. This is Arezki Berraki who headed the Ministry of Water Resources from January 2020 to February 2021. He was sacked by President Tebboune during the cabinet reshuffle operated last February, and replaced by Mustapha Kamel Mihoubi. According to the official agency of judicial source,
Mr. Berraki was placed under arrest warrant by the investigating judge at the Penal Pole specializing in the fight against financial and economic crime near the court of Sidi M’hamed.
Arezki Berraki is being prosecuted in corruption cases dating back to his tenure as head of the National Dams and Transfers Agency (ANBT), the same source said. He led the ANBT from 2015 to January 2020.
A few days ago, the prosecutor of the court of Sidi M’hamed explained that public markets have become the royal road to grand corruption in Algeria.
Besides Berraki, another former minister, Tahar Khaoua was also placed under arrest warrant by the investigating judge of the court of Sidi M’hamed (Algiers), and as part of an investigation into a corruption case. Mr. Khaoua was Minister of Relations with the Parliament during the reign of Bouteflika, from 2015 to 2018. He was deputy from 2002 to 2015.
