An the last day of the pleadings in the case of the car assembly and hidden financing of the 2019 presidential campaign, the lawyers of the businessman Ahmed Mazouz carried out the trial of the Judicial Police (PJ) which developed, according to them , of “False reports on the basis of false information” which gave rise to this trial, which, in their opinion, was “oriented” and the political dimension given to this affair is “undeniable”.
“If there had been a serious investigation, since an investigation requires serenity, because it has an impact on people’s lives, we wouldn’t be there, and these ministers and businessmen will not suffer so much. humiliation and contempt. We were forced to have a false debate ”, lance Me Lakhdari.
The defense of former executives at the Ministry of Industry, Tira Amine, Abdelkrim Mustapha and Mohamed Alouane, also noted the multiple “Judicial errors” committed in the handling of this case, in particular the investigations “Sloppy” by the security services and an instruction “superficial”.
Several lawyers have considered that one of the foundations of justice, namely equality before justice, has been “Flouted”. Me Benyacoub, lawyer for Tira Amine, notes that his client is being sued on a presumption and not for his direct relationship with the case.
Her client, she argues, was a member of the technical evaluation commission “Which has no relation to automobile assembly” and that his “Mission consisted only of giving the opinion and submitting its report to the Minister”, adding that he had resigned in March 2017 due to anomalies, but also to have been responsible for receiving operators directly, while this fell under the prerogatives of other officials.
The commission studied, before his resignation, 26 automobile assembly files and issued a favorable opinion for 19 files. “Tira did not sign anything, he was not a member of the committee and despite that his name is in the file. That’s a quirk. They said my client had controlling power, while in the same judgment, they considered that the person in charge who held the post of director of technological development before him had no power.
It is not logical”, she slices before pleading the release. On these ambiguities and contradictions, many lawyers evoke half-heartedly, in the alleys of the court of Algiers, the existence “From a dark cabinet”.
In his pleadings, Me Lakhdari called the story by recalling the conditions under which the defense worked. He thus insisted on the “violation” of the rights of the defense. “On what basis and by what right does the judicial police allow themselves to say that such and such a person deserves imprisonment? By what right does it order the seizure of the assets or documents of the accused?
After the arrest of the prime ministers and ministers and businessmen, the judicial police refused to give us the reports. The defense would withdraw. I was ashamed to wear the black dress ”, relate Me Lakhdari, denouncing a political trial and a case that sounds like one “Settling of scores which has led to throwing Algeria’s most honest businessmen to food and sacrificing very competent state officials just to satisfy a people in insurrection”.
Executives and businessmen “humiliated”
Since the start of the pleadings, the lawyers have protested against the political character of this case. They were above all exasperated by the “instrumentalisation” of justice in a case described as empty. “We are talking about money laundering, privileges, the accusation against Mr. Mazouz requires arguments to give it a basis.
My client was wronged, we tried to break him and not the other way around ”, observe Me Lakhdari who looks back at length on the journey and the origins of his client’s fortune. “Mr. Mazouz was not born last rain. At 18, he was at the head of a company which employed 220 workers. Today, it has 23 factories employing thousands of workers.
I do not understand how one asks a businessman of this size why and how between 2011 and 2018, these factories made a turnover of 128 billion centimes It is obvious ”exclaims the lawyer. The latter points out that his client’s factories are not bankrupt. On the contrary, they generate profits and dividends every year.
“This money belongs to him, he has never asked for credits, why is he being asked to account? During 30 years of existence in the business world, its activity was irreproachable, the departments concerned scrutinize its accounts.
Why are we humiliating him in this way today? “ protests Mazouz’s lawyer who recalls the humiliation suffered by all the accused since their arrest. “They wanted to despise these executives and businessmen. Handcuffed, the defendants got out of the police vans and crossed the street before arriving at the court in front of a crowd of onlookers and journalists filming their passage.
Why this show? Why did we want to tarnish the image of these people? ” he asks himself. Mazouz and the defense of all the accused have hope today. They were delighted with the good progress of this trial with a special component and all request the release of their constituents. This trial took place after the Supreme Court accepted the cassation appeal brought by the defense of the accused.
This is, in fact, the first corruption case dealt with in December 2019 by the Sidi M’hamed court, and in which the two former Prime Ministers, Ahmed Ouyahia and Abdelmalek Sellal, as well as the three former ministers of Industry, Youcef Yousfi, Mahdjoub Bedda and Abdesselam Bouchouareb and the Minister of Transport and Public Works, Abdelghani Zaalane.
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