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The trial of former Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz continues in Nouakchott. He is on trial, along with nine other personalities, for corruption, influence peddling and money laundering.
With our correspondent in Nouakchott, Salem Mejbour Salem
The trial began on January 25. But Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz only came to the bar on Monday. After questioning him regarding his identity and his profession, the judge listed all the charges once morest him. The exchange did not last.
The former president’s lawyers immediately gathered around him before asking the court to declare itself incompetent. Only a high court of justice is, according to them, empowered to judge their client, in accordance with the Constitution.
Maître Taleb Khiyar Mohamed Maouloud is one of Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz’s lawyers. ” It is not at all acceptable for the Constitution to be violated in such a serious way so that one then wants to justify that his appearance before the courts of common law is a legal appearance. It is not at all a legal comparison, it is not an appearance which is in conformity with the Constitution, it is unconstitutional. »
Maitre lo Gourmo, one of the state lawyers, gives another reading of the immunity of former heads of state. “ We cannot judge him as long as he is in the exercise of his function, since he had functional immunity, but once this immunity has gone because he is no longer in the exercise of the function , it is the ordinary judge who will be competent when the facts are cited before him. »
The legal battle over the jurisdiction of the court has dominated the debates since the opening of the trial.
