The Algerian prosecutor’s office has requested an 18-year prison sentence against the former CEO of the state-owned oil group Sonatrach, Abdelmoumen Ould Kaddour, on trial for corruption.
Ould Kaddour is being prosecuted along with his former deputy Ahmed Mazeghi in a corruption case related to Sonatrach’s 2018 purchase of the Augusta refinery and various infrastructure in southern Italy from Esso Italy, a subsidiary of U.S. ExxonMobil.
The amount of the sale was not specified at the time but according to the Algerian media the oil group paid 720 million dollars, an amount considered excessive for an old refinery that began production in 1950.
According to the prosecutor’s office, the transaction cost Sonatrach a total of $2.1 billion, as the company also paid $916 million to acquire the oil stored in the refinery and significant additional sums for renovation work.
The prosecution has requested 18 years in prison for Mr. Ould Kaddour and ten years for Mr. Mazeghi, notably for “squandering public funds, abuse of office and conflict of interest”.
Ould Kaddour, a close associate of the late deposed president Abdelaziz Bouteflika, was extradited to Algeria in August 2021 after being arrested in the United Arab Emirates under an international arrest warrant issued by the Algerian judiciary.
Appointed head of Sonatrach in March 2017, Ould Kaddour was dismissed three weeks after the fall of Abdelaziz Bouteflika in early April 2019, pushed out by an unprecedented popular protest movement, the Hirak, after 20 years in power.
Ould Kaddour had previously headed the oil engineering company Brown and Root Condor (BRC), a subsidiary of Sonatrach and the U.S. oil services company Halliburton.
BRC was dissolved in 2007 after suspicions of corruption in contracts obtained in violation of regulations.
