Four bank accounts in Switzerland held by Chakib Khelil and a fifth one with his wife!

Switzerland’s Federal Criminal Tribunal said it has turned down an appeal by former Algerian Energy Minister Chakib Khelil to prevent supply of information and services concerning him in Swiss banks as the Algerian authorities are looking for a financial package worth over 200 million Euros, and that this amount is not commensurate, and did not stem from an official activity by Khelil, adding that the former energy Minister holds 4 accounts in Swiss banks and a fifth one with his wife.

“Echorouk” secured a 12-page fact-finding report issued to this effect, saying that the Algerian authorities were able to monitor the evidence of transfers of funds made by Farid Bedjaoui’s exposed front company in favour of the wife of the former Energy Minister, adding that the relevant Algerian authorities requested in June 2013 the supply of documents relating to secret bank accounts that may have belonged to wanted Chakib Khelil in Switzerland.

On 1 January 2013, the Swiss judicial authorities organized a working meeting with the Algerian and Italian judicial authorities for the same purpose.

However, the Swiss legal representatives didn’t provide during such a broad-based encounter any documents to foreign judicial authorities notably to the Algerian and Italian examining magistrates.

But on 22 April 2014, the Algerian side filed again a new formal request to retrieve documents and bank statements related to the former energy Minister Chakib Khelil and his wife and their two sons, a move which finally received a positive reply from the Swiss judicial authorities.

In a reaction, Chakib Khelil lodged according to the same source through his lawyer, an appeal against the Swiss authorities’ decision of 22 April 2014, a month after its release, on 23 May 2014, but his appeal was rejected on 24 June 2014.

The Swiss federal criminal Court justified the move by the fact that the two countries’ judicial relations were governed by a joint binding agreement signed by the two sides in 2006, highlighting the necessity of the widest possible bilateral assistance in any criminal investigation.