The legal team of Mauritania’s ex-president Abdel Aziz on Friday confirmed their client’s indictment for corruption.
Along with a dozen other senior figures, he was charged on Thursday in Nouakchott for corruption and placed under judicial supervision, APA learnt from the French website Le Figaro, quoting an AFP report which quoted a judicial source and one of the former head of state’s lawyers.
Thus, the investigating judge followed the recommendations of the prosecutor Ahmedou Ould Abdallahi who had requested the indictment and placement under judicial supervision of Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, one of his sons-in-law, two former prime ministers and several former ministers and businessmen, the media reported.
According to this lawyer, his client “refused to answer the judge’s questions, holding to the immunity granted to him by the Constitution in Article 93. The judge will soon specify the conditions of the judicial review, said the same anonymous judicial source.
In addition, the prosecutor has requested a “thorough” judicial review.
“The list of charges brought against the ex-president by the prosecution and on which the investigating judge must rule and investigate is long,” said an anonymous source close to the prosecution. It “includes corruption, money laundering, illicit enrichment, squandering of public property, granting of undue advantages and obstruction of justice.”
The report of a parliamentary commission of enquiry charged with shedding light on alleged corruption and embezzlement of public funds during the years of power of Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz has been before the courts since August 2020. The commission looked into several aspects: the management of oil revenues, the sale of state property, the liquidation of a public company supplying the country with foodstuffs and the activities of a Chinese fishing company.
After more than ten years in power between 2008 and 2019, this indictment represents a new stage in the fall of Ould Abdel Aziz under his successor Mohamed Ould Cheikh El Ghazouani. The latter was his chief of staff and minister before preparing him for the presidency.
Ould Abdel Aziz cried foul for what he called “score-settling” while his successor constantly invokes the independence of justice.
ODL/cgd/lb/abj/APA