Khalifa Trial: “General Prosecutor challenged verdict against Rafik Khalifa, Meziane Ighil and 10 other defendants”
The Attorney General at the Criminal Court of Blida, has challenged the court’s verdict delivered against main defendant Abdelmoumene Rafik Khalifa, of 18 years’ imprisonment, and 11 other suspects, in the mega Khalifa Bank case, with the majority of them now being released, and those accused who had appealed against their own sentences at the hearing of the verdicts’ pronouncement held on 23 rd 2015.
Reliable Judicial sources told “Echorouk” that the General Prosecutor, Mohamed Zarg Erras, decided to appeal against the judgment laid down by the criminal Court of Blida on 23 June 2015, in the case of Khalifa Bank concerning respectively the main accused Abdelmoumene Rafik Khalifa, former President Director General of the now bankrupt Khalifa Group who was convicted to 18 years in detention.
The General Prosecutor’s move also concerned ailing notary Rahal Omar, accused of falsifying binding constitutive contracts for the setting up of Khalifa Bank who is now receiving treatment in hospital as well as football coach Meziane Ighil who was then among the managerial staff of the now dissolved financial institution.
The Prosecutor General deemed the verdicts handed down against them on June 23rd 2015 by the Blida court as lenient and thereby lodged an appeal for a toughening of the prison sentences against them as well as against ten other defendants involved in the case which cost the Public Treasury around several billion dollars in losses.