Algeria: Corruption Entails Imprisonment Of Secretary General Of The Ruling Party

 The investigative judge at the Sidi M’hamed court in the capital Algiers on Thursday ordered the putting of MP and businessman Mohamed Djemai in pre-trial detention at El Harrach prison.

The current secretary general of the FLN faces corruption charges.

The wife of Djemai was also sent to the same prison, where she was charged with forgery and impersonation.

This Thursday, the MP of the National People’s Assembly and the Secretary-General of the FLN party, Mohamed Djemai, was presented before the Attorney General of the Court of Sidi M’hamed in central Algiers.

MP Mohamed Djemai, secretary-general of the National Liberation Front (FLN), will be tried on charges of participating in the destruction of official documents and judicial files, as well as threats and insults via the use of telephone, according to the correspondence received from the Ministry of Justice to the National People’s Assembly to lift his parliamentary immunity.

On Monday, Mohamed Djemai appointed the political bureau member Ali Seddiki to succeed him as secretary general of the FLN  party after the decision to strip him of his parliamentary immunity at the request of justice.

Both of them held a joint press conference early this month at the headquarters of the National Liberation Front, immediately after the request of the Ministry of Justice to lift  Djemai’s parliamentary immunity.

At the time, Djemai, originally a businessman known in eastern Algeria, said that the initial information he had received was that he was not involved in corruption cases, but rather  sought about a case brought against him by someone.

He also defended the independence of the judiciary, and stressed that he would be subject to the law like any citizen, and said, “The request to lift parliamentary immunity from me is legal, and no one is above the law.”

The new secretary-general of the National Liberation Front (FLN) tried to appear intact during the press conference, but the confusion and anxiety were apparent, and he ended the press conference quickly under the pretext of entering a closed meeting with the Politburo to study the new developments.