By Enyichukwu Enemanna
The jailed brother of Algeria’s late President Abdelaziz Bouteflika received an eight-year prison sentence on Monday for corruption.
Said Bouteflika’s co-defendant, construction tycoon Ali Haddad who is also already in prison on other charges, was sentenced to four years, and both received fines.
They had been charged with influence peddling, abuse of office, money laundering and failing to declare assets.
In October, both men had been sentenced to two years in prison for obstruction of justice, but Bouteflika was exonerated in that case by an appeals court in May.
Sentences issued by Algerian courts are not added up, with only the longest sentence actually served.
Said Bouteflika, 64, was long seen as the real power behind his ailing brother, whose bid for a fifth term in office sparked mass protests in 2019 that eventually forced him to resign.
Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s fall was followed by a string of prosecutions against senior members of his inner circle.
His brother was arrested in May 2019 and sentenced to 15 years for “plotting against the state and the army” in the days before the former president’s resignation.
Early last year, he was acquitted of those charges by a military appeals court, but was handed to a civil court to face trial on corruption charges.
Abdelaziz Bouteflika died in September at the age of 84.
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