Abdelmoumène Khalifa appeals against court verdict issued against him in France

Former Algerian business tycoon, Abdelmoumène Khalifa, now detained in Algeria, has decided through his lawyer to challenge the 5 – year court verdict handed down against him last month by a Nanterre tribunal in France.

Rafik Khalifa’s lawyer, Laâzar Nasreddine told Echorouk that he had decided at the request of his client to lodge an appeal with a higher French court against the 5 – year prison sentence issued by the Nanterre tribunal against Abdelmoumène Khalifa in a recent trial held in absentia.

Mr Laâzar Nasreddine affirmed such a trial staged in France of his client in his absence was “in total contradiction with the judicial agreements and relevant legal conventions signed between Algeria and France”, as he put it.

Jailed Abdelmoumène Khalifa, whose billion-euro business empire extended to sponsoring the French football club of Olympique Marseille, was tried for allegedly embezzling large sums of money in France.

The trial of Abdelmoumène Rafik Khalifa, was held in Nanterre, near Paris last month.

Khalifa was considered a golden boy in his native Algeria until his downfall in 2002, when the blameworthy businessman was accused of embezzling of more than two millions euros.

In 2007 an Algerian court found him guilty of criminal association, corruption, abuse of trust and forgery.

The French court tried him on similar charges – in absentia, as he is currently serving a life sentence in jail in his homeland pending the expected reopening by the Algerian justice of the case with on focus a retrial on account of new developments in the file.

The son of a former minister, Khalifa built up an estimated one-billion-euro business empire that extended into banking, construction, aviation, media and the sports industry.

It included a high-profile sponsorship of the French football club Olympique de Marseille.

The fall of his business empire is estimated to have cost between 1.5 billion and five billion Euros in losses to the Algerian state.

Ten other people were also accused by the French justice of fraud and embezzlement.
Meanwhile, Algerian Minister of Justice Tayeb Louh declared recently that the Algerian Supreme Court has to examine the appeal filed the defence of Abdelmoumène Rafik Khalifa, prosecuted on several heavy charges.”

“Once this procedural issue is resolved, the case will be enrolled and other relevant measures will be taken, in line with the decision of the Supreme Court,” the justice minister underlined.

The minister indicated that “all the cases are submitted to the legal procedures foreseen by the law.”

In a response to a question on the sentence recently delivered by the Tribunal of Nanterre (France) against Abdelmoumène Rafik Khalifa, Tayeb Louh stressed that “any judicial system in Algeria or elsewhere is sovereign.”

The defendant, currently in jail in Algeria, was found guilty of organizing the “looting” of the company just before its liquidation, “by emptying it from some of its most significant assets,” including properties and luxury cars.

In 2007, the former businessman was also sentenced in absentia by the Criminal Court of Blida in Algeria, to life imprisonment, notably on charges of conspiracy and fraudulent bankruptcy.