Architect of Corruption, Fugitive Minister Bouchouareb Sells Two Apartments in Paris

The former Minister of Industry, Abdeslam Bouchouareb, who was convicted of 4 judicial sentences, totalling 80 years in prison, trampled on the judicial cooperation agreement between France and Algeria, by selling some of his properties in the French capital, Paris, despite the seizure of all his movable and real property by the Algerian judicial services.

Algeria and France signed an agreement related to the extradition of wanted persons between the two countries in 2019, a protocol considered an extension of the agreement signed in 1964.

In exclusive details with documents and photos in the possession of Echorouk, the fugitive minister sold two apartments in the most prestigious neighbourhoods of the French capital, Paris. The first apartment with an area of 156 square meters is located next to the Cathedral Notre Dame de Paris, on “130 avenue Pasteur, Le Blanc Mesnil, 93150 building No. 21, acquired in June 2006 for 1.18 million euros to a person named “ETCHEVERRY”.

As for the second apartment, it is located on Dante Street, where its value exceeds one million euros, and it was sold to a Frenchman through an intermediary.

In return for the sale of two apartments, the sons of Bouchouareb bought a luxury apartment in the most prestigious streets of the capital, Paris, precisely in the Champs-Elysées, near the Claridge Hotel, for one million euros.

The matter that raises more than one question about the ability of the former corrupt minister wanted by the Algerian judicial services, after being convicted of 4 judicial rulings, the penalty of which reached 20 years imprisonment for each case in which he is pursued, to sell some of his property, in the presence of a legal impediment to that, although all his movable property, real estate, and bank accounts inside and outside the country were seized by judicial decisions issued by the Algerian justice in the cases of corruption in which he was pursued and which were opened in the judicial agenda since the summer of 2019. Did he grant bail to his children to circumvent the law and trample the judicial protocol between France and Algeria, or are there complicit external parties who help him evade the Algerian authorities?

In addition, Bouchouareb, or as he is called by Algerians “the architect of corruption”, under his tampering with length and breadth in the tire-inflating factories, had planned everything, when he registered his villas located near the “Jerusalem” commercial centre in Cheraga neighbourhood in Algiers, which is estimated at DZD 15 million and was leased to the Iraqi embassy for several years in the name of his mother. Bouchouareb was also involved in false declarations of his movable and real estate movables, as he owns several institutions in his name and the name of his brothers and wife, such as factories for the production of chocolate and chips.

The trials witnessed by the Sidi M’hamed Court and later by the Algiers Judicial Council indicated that Abdeslam Bouchouareb received billions in bribes from businessmen and car factory owners, similar to his acquisition of a villa in Hydra area in the capital, worth more than DZD 6 million from a businessman, while another who is active in the field of car installation received a bribe of DZD 14 million, in addition to his possession of three apartments in Algiers, Annaba and Boumerdes, two luxury cars and a real estate granted under a gift contract.