Justice: Abdelmoumène Khalifa’s defense has received no formal notice about his trial

The defense lawyer of former Algerian business tycoon, Rafik Abdelmoumène Khalifa, now in detention in Algeria, has affirmed that he hasn’t up to now received any formal notice from the relevant judicial authorities about the programming of his client’s trial.

Mr Laâzar Nasreddine who has been entrusted with the defense file in the Khalifa case told Echorouk that his client (ie: Abdelmounène Rafik Khalifa) “was a hostage of a covert strategy designed to try him without hearing him and without any defense”, as he put it.

The lawyer said that he didn’t understand the protracted and behind the scenes maneuvers aimed at scuttling his client’s trial which doesn’t seem to be in the offing, contrary to what was stated by Justice Minister, Tayeb Louh.

Mr Laâzar Nasreddine said that he was baffled by such an untoward situation and refused to make any comment about Louh’s recent assertions.

It should be noted that the Algerian Minister of Justice, Tayeb Louh, declared earlier this week that the “Supreme Court has to examine the appeal filed by the defense lawyer of former Algerian businessman, Abdelmoumène Rafik Khalifa, indicted on several charges.”

The minister made this statement on the sidelines of the installation of the newly-appointed president of Algiers Court, Abdi Benyounès.

“Once this issue is resolved, the case will be registered and other measures will be taken, under the relevant decision of the Supreme Court,” the minister said.

The justice minister indicated that “all the cases are to be submitted to the legal procedures foreseen by the law.”

In a response to a question on the sentence recently handed down by the Tribunal of Nanterre (France) against Abdelmoumène Khalifa, Tayeb Louh stressed that “any judicial system in Algeria or elsewhere in the world is sovereign.”

Last week, Abdelmoumène Rafik Khalifa was sentenced in absentia to five-year imprisonment by the Tribunal of Nanterre (France).

The defendant, currently in jail in Algeria, was found guilty of organizing the “looting” of the company just before its liquidation, “by emptying it from some of its most significant assets,” including properties and luxury cars.

In 2007, the former business tycoon was also sentenced in absentia by the Criminal Court of Blida, west of Algiers, to life imprisonment, notably on charges of conspiracy and fraudulent bankruptcy.