The former Mauritanian leader Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, was released Wednesday night after more than a year of preventive detention and judicial control.
The 65-year old former head of state is released, but his case is not closed, according to the Mauritanian judiciary. The former president, who led the country from 2009 to 2019, is awaiting his trial for alleged corruption, the date of which has not yet been set.
Aziz, who was replaced as president by Mohammed Ould Ghazouani, was indicted in March 2021, along with a dozen other senior figures on charges of alleged corruption, money laundering, illicit enrichment, squandering of public assets, granting of undue advantages and obstruction of justice.
The disgraced former president was detained in June of the same year for failure to comply with the measures of his judicial supervision and for disturbing public order.
In January 2022, he was released for health reasons, but remained under judicial supervision. In March, the Mauritanian courts lifted the judicial supervision imposed on his co-defendants.
This court decision allowed him to regain his freedom of movement. His passport will be returned to him and the keys to his family home in Akjoujt (his hometown, 250 km north of Nouakchott) will be given to him, according to his main lawyer Mohameden Ould Icheddou to AFP. According to the lawyer, “the former president’s priority will be to go abroad for treatment after all the pressure he has been under and following his heart disease.”
CD/fss/abj/APA