Achour Abderrahmane: “My fault was investing in public works”

Judge of criminal cases continues for the fifth day, listening to the accused in the case of embezzlement of 2,100 bn centimes from the National Bank of Algeria, as Monday’s session was allocated to the fifth gang, which includes “P, Rabah” partner of Achour and manager of the companies “Mamouna” and “Natassine”, and Achour Abderrahman Riad, a businessman who was handed over by Morocco to Algeria in November 2006, after the case of embezzlement in October 2005.

The two accused are trialed on charges of organizing and leading a criminal gang, participating in the embezzlement of public funds, fraud and issuing checks without balance.

The accused Achour Abderrahman defended himself strongly like a lawyer, saying he denied the charges against him from the first glance, adding that he has nothing to do with embezzling the bank’s money. The judge asked him about the agreement between him and the staff of the National Bank and his partner Rabeh to embezzle funds of the bank. Achour said: “All my relations are professional ‭and commercial with the ‭managers of ‭banks ‭and my partner. My only problem was completing projects ‭and creating new jobs. My only fault ‭was choosing the public works sector with strong ‭competition ‭and ‭ ‬here began unkown letters against me”. ‬