The former Mauritanian president, Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, was arrested on Tuesday evening at around 8pm GMT and placed in detention by a judge of the anti-corruption unit of the prosecutor’s office of Nouakchott-West, according to one of his lawyers contacted in Nouakchott. Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, who led Mauritania between 2008 and 2019, was indicted on March 12 for corruption, misappropriation of public property and money laundering. Facts he has always denied.
It was around 8:00 p.m. local time that three police officers arrived at the home of the former Mauritanian president to take him to the courthouse. His meeting with the judges of the anti-corruption unit was brief. It took only a few minutes to inform him that he was being detained.
Mr. Mohameden Ould Ichidou, the dean of the lawyers defending him, was present at his client’s deferral. He denounced the decision as arbitrary. For him, proof will be made, when the time comes, that the former president is a victim of political settling of scores: “It is a decision that violates all the laws of criminal procedure. We will show that this is only a revenge and that it has no legal basis. ”
Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz led Mauritania between 2008 and 2019. His troubles began a few months after he left office. In January 2020, the parliament voted to create a parliamentary commission to investigate his management during his decade-long presidency.
In July 2020, the commission delivered its report. The 800-page document damns the former head of state. Corruption, influence peddling, embezzlement and misappropriation of public property, money laundering… Aziz denies the facts. But he was charged on March 12, 2021, and placed under house arrest on May 11. It is not known what motivated his incarceration, as the Prosecutor’s Office has not yet communicated.