Algeria : 13 Municipal executives behind bars for law- breaking

According to judicial sources from the Bir Mourad Rais Court in Algiers, the President of the municipality of Bouzareah as well as a Manager of a real-estate company and several communal executives have been remanded in custody on several charges including criminal conspiracy.

The examining Magistrate has ordered their immediate detention in the wake of a thorough investigation into the affair conducted by the National Gendarmerie Services clearly proving the defendants’ direct involvement in illegal and fraudulent practises.

The latter are notably accused of malpractice, embezzlement of funds, and breach of trust, corruption and forgery and use of forgeries.

Two other people involved in this affair are however, still at large and their whereabouts are still unknown.

The investigation established that the Manager of the real estate company, now behind bars, had sold fictitious housing units to several hapless citizens for a sum of 775 million centimes.

In so doing, he had recourse to the complicity of the Mayor of the municipality of Bouzareah and 9 other communal executives for the issuing of fake documents on the pseudo-real estate transaction, which was, in fact, a real property fraud as demonstrated later by the National Gendarmerie inquiry.