“Kouninef” Case… State Treasury Incurred Losses Of Thousands Of Billions Of Dinars

The financial losses incurred by the public treasury in the file of the “Kouninef ” brothers are estimated at thousands of billions of dinars, which is the case that will be heard by the misdemeanor Court of Sidi M’hamed in Algiers tomorrow, Wednesday, July 29th, and related to the company “KOUGC”, in which the Kouninef brothers are facing heavy charges.

The charges include “exploitation of influence”, “transfer of real estate and concessions” and “failure to fulfill contractual obligations when completing public projects”.

The Court of Sidi M’hamed will therefore reopen the case of Kouninef, whose three brothers Réda, Abdelkader-Karim and Tarek were placed on 24 April 2019 under a committal order at the prison of El-Harrach by the court of Sidi M’hamed.

According to our source, the court summoned several witnesses in this case, including former ministers and senior State officials, all of whom are implicated in this heavy case which, moreover, risks splashing political figures in view of the Kouninef’s proximity to deposed President Bouteflika and his younger brother Said.

The Kouninef brothers were called to answer several charges, including influence peddling, misappropriation of land and concessions and failure to respect contractual commitments in the implementation of public projects.

On 31 May, the Kouninef brothers were questioned by the investigating judge at the Sidi M’hamed court in Algiers in this case.

Recently, the names of several former ministers, who were cited in the investigation of the Kouninef brothers’ case, reappeared, but, according to our source, not all of them had appeared before the Supreme Court.

However, according to our source, some of the former ministers involved, summoned last Thursday, could appear during this week to be heard, while others, as witnesses, will be summoned shortly.
In addition, the two former prime ministers Ahmed Ouyahia and Abdelmalek Sellal will also be heard by the Court for granting undue advantages to the Kouninef brothers.

In other details, our sources revealed that the former Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia granted bank privileges and exemptions to the wealthy family “Kouninef”, as he exempted them from a loss of more than $ 75 million dollars, a month before the outbreak of the popular “Hirak” movement in Algeria.

These two defendants had already been heard by justice in June 2019 in this case, whose trial already resembles a real soap opera in view of the number of defendants and witnesses called by the investigations conducted by the National Gendarmerie, the Central Office for the Suppression of Corruption (OCRC) and the Financial Intelligence Processing Unit (CTRF).

Indeed, from public works, hydraulics, oil drilling, telephony and fiber optics to real estate and other businesses, the KouGC group has built a genuine empire, betting on its influence, going so far as to finance electoral campaigns to keep an omnipotent President in power in order to get richer through public procurement.

Not seeing it coming, the Kouninef brothers were caught up in the series of preliminary investigations into grand corruption in Algeria and were banned from leaving the country on 31 March 2019.

As a reminder, when they were brought before the courts in April 2019 with one of their directors and 11 State officials, the three Kouninef brothers had been placed in pre-trial detention, while six executives had been granted provisional release.