The Judiciary Accepts To Merge The Sentences Imposed On Djamel Ould Abbas

The Algerian Council of the Judiciary has agreed to merge the sentences imposed on Djamel Ould Abbas, the former Minister of Solidarity, by two final court rulings in which the Supreme Court sentenced him to a total of 10 years of effective imprisonment, taking into account the maximum sentence to which he was sentenced, which is 6 years of effective imprisonment.
Specifically, Echorouk’s sources revealed that the Criminal Chamber of the Algerian Judicial Council approved the request submitted by Djamel Ould Abbas’ defense team to merge the sentences imposed on him in two separate cases, citing the deteriorating health of their client and his age, which is almost 90 years old, entering the year 2024.
On this basis, the former Minister of Solidarity, Family and National Community Abroad, Djamel Ould Abbas, will leave prison after a year and a half, while his defense has submitted a request for his conditional release, along with a complete medical file on his client’s health status.
Last February, the judiciary had officially begun to confiscate all of Ould Abbas’s assets after the Supreme Court rejected the cassation appeal filed by the defendant in the corruption case that was being prosecuted in Algeria for the embezzlement and misappropriation of funds belonging to victims of terrorism, and approved the confirmation of the verdict issued by the Algerian Judicial Council, which convicted him. He was sentenced to 4 years of imprisonment, with confiscation of his real and movable property, as well as the bank deposits he did not declare in the first corruption case.
This came after the Supreme Court rejected the cassation appeal in the first case in which Ould Abbas was prosecuted with his successor in the position, Said Barakat, and related to the scandal of tampering with the electoral lists of the people in the 2017 legislation, in which he was convicted of 6 years of effective imprisonment, so that the two sentences became final, with a total of 10 years of effective imprisonment (4 years of effective imprisonment + 6 years of effective imprisonment).
Ould Abbas deceived the judiciary by failing to declare his property and bank accounts in the first corruption file, and on this basis no confiscation order was issued, but the public prosecutor’s office at the Economic and Financial Criminal Court in Sidi M’hamed became aware of this after opening the second corruption file.
Investigations and legal representations have revealed that Ould Abbas owns a villa, a 16-room medical clinic and a “cabanon”, a chalet a stone’s throw from the sea, in addition to the sums of money found in the safe of the Bank of Agriculture and Rural Development, which were contained in envelopes, namely (26 $200 bills, 84 $200 bills, 50 $100 bills, 162 $100 bills, 33 $500 bills and 660 $100 bills), along with another envelope containing $200. An amount in national currency is estimated at 410 million centimes, in addition to a precious watch.
Djamel Ould Abbas confessed to these properties before the judge of the Third Branch of the Economic and Financial Criminal Court after being confronted with the fact that his properties had not been declared. The defendant replied to him by saying: “I admit, Mr. President, that I did not declare my properties, and I apologize at the same time. I did not know and was ignorant of the law”.