Algeria’s security services have launched a thorough investigation into properties and investments made by the family of late Ahmed Gaid Salah, the powerful Algerian general and army chief.
Salah died on Dec. 23 last year. He was the country's deputy minister of defense and had supported protesters who called for the resignation of president Abdelaziz Bouteflika.
A report published Thursday by Al Watan newspaper said that the Dar El Beida Tribunal in Algiers banned the two sons of Gaid Salah, Adel and Boumediene, from travelling abroad.
It said both men are now subject to a judicial inquiry into the properties and companies, which Gaid Salah’s family owned when the Algerian army chief was in power.
A judicial source said that the prosecution placed a number of Gaid Salah family members and other figures and businessmen on the list of persons banned from travelling on suspicion of corruption.
The same source said that a decision was taken to launch investigations with Gaid Salah’s two sons after their names came up during the interrogation of Guermit Bounouira, a former private secretary to Gaid Salah, who fled Algeria on March 5 to seek asylum in exchange for highly sensitive information and documents.
Bounouira was handed over by Turkey to the Algerian authorities last month. He is in detention in the military prison of Blida on charges of high treason.
The newspaper said that investigations with Gaid Salah’s family revolve around their properties in the eastern town of Annaba.
The family also owns a number of buildings and a newspaper, Edough News, run by Adel Gaid Salah.
