Mauritania: Ex-president placed under investigation

The former Mauritanian President Ould Abdel Aziz has been placed under investigation on charges of corruption, after a parliamentary committee scrutinised his ten years in office.

Ould Abdel Aziz initially refused to cooperate with investigators and refused to answer their questions on the pretext that he is a former president. However, he later relented when he noticed the investigators’ insistence on interrogating him.

Investigators said “the reason for summoning Ould Abdel Aziz is that his name appeared as a former president of the republic in files that were referred by Parliament to the Ministry of Justice, which in turn referred the reports to the Public Prosecution Office for investigation, but also because of other documents linking the former president to state security affairs.”

Police imposed strict measures around the security directorate building where the former president was being questioned, while some of his relatives and supporters tried to gather in the street.

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After more than three hours of questioning, members of the former president’s defence team, headed by lawyer Mohameden Ould Ichiddou, said their client had been “illegally detained, and has been denied his right to be accompanied by his defence.”

The defence team, which included several lawyers, asked the judicial authorities to respect the legal process, confirming their commitment to ensure that their client enjoys all his rights, the most prominent of which is to allow his lawyers to attend the interrogations.

Member of the defence, lawyer Taqi Allah Aydah, said: “One of the lawyers entered the vicinity of the security headquarters and asked the police to allow him to accompany his client. However, the officers there said that they will inform the concerned parties of his request, before asking him to leave the premises.”