#Algeria : A former Prime Minister of the late ex-Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, Noureddine Bedoui, was imprisoned Tuesday by the Court of Algiers for acts of corruption, joining two of his predecessors in prison, according to local media.
Ahmed Ouyahia and Abdelmalek Sellal, two other prime ministers, arrested in 2019 after the fall of Bouteflika, were sentenced to prison terms in several corruption cases.
According to local media, a judge at the Sidi-M’hamed court in Algiers decided on Sunday to place Mr. Bedoui under judicial control, with the withdrawal of his passport. But the Court of Algiers overturned this decision on Tuesday and decided to imprison him pending trial.
Aged 62, Noureddine Bedoui was appointed Prime Minister on March 12, 2019 by Abdelaziz Bouteflika, then president to replace the very unpopular Ahmed Ouyahia, sacked in an attempt to calm the Hirak, an unprecedented popular protest movement born three weeks earlier.
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Noureddine Bedoui had held the Interior portfolio for almost four years and was seen as a zealous servant of Mr. Bouteflika, and as such hated by the “Hirak”.
After Bouteflika’s fall on April 2, 2019 under the pressure of the Hirak and army demonstrations, the justice system launched a series of investigations into the cases in which the men around him were involved.
Several former senior politicians as well as powerful businessmen have been sentenced, in particular for acts of corruption.
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Algeria fell to 117th place out of 180 countries in the world ranking of the corruption perception index, published in January 2022 by the NGO Transparency International.
Mr. Bouteflika, who had ruled the country for 20 years until the spring of 2019, died at the age of 84 on September 17, 2021.