With our correspondent in Nouakchott, Salem Mejbour Salem
The trial of the former Mauritanian president resumed on April 10, 2023 in Nouakchott. Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz has been appearing since January 25, 2023 before a criminal court for alleged acts of corruption, embezzlement of public property and money laundering. Facts he has always denied. But the court heard several witnesses on Monday, including a retired general and former director general of the police, who renewed charges against the former head of state.
Before the court, former General Ould Beckrime thus claims to have received the order from Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz to cede part of the grounds of the Nouakchott police academy with a view to its transformation into a shopping centre.
The continuation of the trial suspended until the end of Ramadan
The amount remains unknown, but Maître Lo Gourmo, who defends the Mauritanian state, denounces a sell-off of public property: “We have seen that the general’s testimony has highlighted the interventionism of the former head of state. And, above all, his tendency to seize public property, to make private business out of it, to make private property out of it, through dubious transactions. »
Maître Ciré Clédor Ly, one of Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz’s lawyers, criticizes the method used by the court to overwhelm his client in the absence of adversarial debate: “The depositions of a witness only have meaning and value when they are submitted to a contradictory debate. This is the case with the documents which the prosecution intends to rely on, and which will also only have value when they are the subject of contradictory debates. In any case, the testimonies of those who paraded had no legal interest. »
The trial was suspended again. It will resume after the Eid al-Fitr holiday, in ten days, which will mark the end of Ramadan.
► Read also Opening of the trial of former Mauritanian President Mohamed ould Abdel Aziz