Former Algerian Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia sentenced to seven years in prison
Former Algerian Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia, who is under investigation for multiple cases of political corruption and graft, has again been sentenced to 7 years in prison by the Sidi M'hamed Court and fined 1 million Algerian dinars. This new case is part of the investigation into the businessman linked to the tourism sector, Ben Fassih Mohamed.
The former prime minister, who served several times under Bouteflika, has been in prison since June 2019. He has already been sentenced to 10 years for corruption, the endemic evil of Algerian politics, and this new sentence has been added to an attempt by the Tebboune government to project a sense of cleanliness into the institutions.
He is not the only member of the former cabinet to have been convicted. Former public works ministers Amar Ghoul and Abdelghani Zaalane have also been sentenced to three years' imprisonment and the same financial penalty as Ouyahia. Apart from these high ranking officials, the Algiers Court has imposed on the former governors of the Skikda region, where the case was heard, Mohamed Bouderbali, Fawzi Ben Hocine and Derfour Hadjri several prison sentences, five years in prison for the first and two years for the other two, apart from the fine.
The Algerian investor at the centre of this corruption case has not been spared either. Ben Fassih Mohamed is to spend four years in prison. The prison sentences are lower than those requested by the Prosecutor's Office at the time. At the end of December, the public prosecutor's office requested 12 years' imprisonment for Ahmed Ouyahia and former minister Zaalane, while asking for 10 for the other former minister of public works.
Since the fall of Bouteflika, many cases of corruption have been uncovered and are being prosecuted. Many leading figures from the world of politics and business are being investigated for corruption and influence peddling, in what has been a regular feature of Algerian politics for decades.
Ahmed Ouyahia is serving a sentence in El Harrach for another case linked to the businessman Ali Haddid, who was the beneficiary of over a hundred public contracts for nearly two decades. The former prime minister Abdelmalek Sellal and other former ministers of industry were also sentenced, though one of them, Abdeslam Bouchouareb, is currently on the run.
All these trials are an attempt by Algeria's current president, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, to respond to the demands of the Hirak social movement, which was calling for more transparent institutions in which public money would be better controlled and favourable treatment would cease to be a constant. However, many analysts warn that this is nothing more than a washout intended to close a chapter, but that the problem is still rooted in the politics of the country now led by Tebboune.