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A spokesman for former Algerian leader Abdelaziz Bouteflika and one of the country's leading businessmen, Ali Haddad, was sentenced Monday to six months in prison for holding two pbadports, announced state television.
Haddad was arrested in late March at the Tunisian border, in possession of two pbadports and an undeclared currency, a few days before Bouteflika's resignation following mbadive protests.
Haddad, owner of Algeria's largest private construction company, is the first major Bouteflika-related figure to be jailed since the president's resignation.
He was found guilty of "unjustified acquisition of administrative documents" and fined 50,000 dinars ($ 420), state television reported.
Described by Forbes as one of the wealthiest entrepreneurs in Algeria, Haddad would have widely used his ties with Bouteflika to build his business empire.
The businessman denied having broken the law and declared that he had obtained his second pbadport by law after asking for an interview with the prime minister of the time, Abdelmalek Sellal.
The former prime minister and Haddad are among many businessmen and former politicians involved in a separate anti-corruption investigation launched since the president's resignation.
Earlier this month, Haddad's lawyer, Khaled Bourayou, denounced a "political trial" and told reporters that the pbadport case had no legal basis.
The penalty is well below the 18-month sentence and a fine of 100,000 dinars requested by the prosecutor.
Hbadane Boualem, then director of titles and documents secured at the Ministry of the Interior, was sentenced to a two-month suspended sentence and fined 20,000 for issuing the second pbadport of Haddad in 2016.
He told the court that he was following the orders of his superiors – the head of the Interior Ministry, Hocine Mazouz, Sellal and the current Algerian Prime Minister, Noureddine Bedoui – who did not want to be in charge. have not been the subject of an investigation for this case.
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