Presidential Scandal: 10-Year Prison Sentence Requested for Bouakkaz, Former Protocol Officer and Alleged Lover of Tebboune’s Daughter
10-Year Prison Sentence Requested for the Former Chief of Protocol at the Presidency of the Republic and Lover of Tebboune’s Daughter For a sordid story of “serious misconduct and breach of professional ethics,” according to the El-Mouradia Palace press release, the pretext for his dismissal from his post, Mohamed Bouakkaz, the former advisor to the President of the Republic in charge of the General Directorate of Protocol, found himself in the dock on Wednesday, April 9, 2025.
His dismissal and retirement, despite his age of 45, were not enough for Tebboune to atone for what he considers an affront inflicted on him by this loyal servant. The accusation of “serious misconduct and breach of professional ethics” landed him ten months after his dismissal, in June 2024, six of which were spent in pretrial detention in El-Harrach prison. Brought before the prosecutor’s office at the Bir Mourad Rais Criminal Court in Algiers, he was to face charges of “abuse of office and illicit enrichment,” related to assets acquired between 2012 and 2018, and a case involving Rolex watches, “gifts,” which he allegedly resold.
These accusations are far-fetched, if only one could justify the heavy sentence he would receive at the end of this trial. Mohamed Bouakkaz was to be “punished,” according to a close associate of Tebboune. “He dared to touch the president’s family.”
Let’s examine the origins of the case to understand the mystery behind it. Mohamed Bouakkaz was considered the most loyal member of President Tebboune’s inner circle. He is a civil servant who loyally served, as chief of protocol, former Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal, now in prison, and his successor Abdelmadjid Tebboune, for a brief period of three months, before being dismissed by Ahmed Ouyahia. The day after Tebboune’s election as Algerian head of state, he was called upon to assume the duties of advisor to the President of the Republic in charge of the General Directorate of Protocol. So far, everything has gone well for this young man, who is “helpful, courteous, and kind,” according to those who knew him closely. Aside from a few clashes with other members of the presidential circle, notably the President’s private secretary, Amirouche Hamadache, over trivial matters that amounted to jealousy between his henchmen.
On Wednesday, June 5, the sky fell on Mohammed Bouakkaz’s head. He was hastily dismissed from the seat of the Presidency of the Republic without ceremony. “The President of the Republic, Mr. Abdelmadjid Tebboune, today terminated the duties of Mr. Mohammed Bouakkaz, Advisor to the President of the Republic in charge of the General Directorate of Protocol, for serious misconduct and breach of professional ethics,” announced a terse statement from the Presidency of the Republic, reprinted, as usual, without the slightest comment by the Algerian media. No attention was paid to the reason for the dismissal of this close associate of the President. Yet the reason is very serious. “Serious misconduct and breach of professional ethics,” the statement reads.
What do we mean by serious misconduct and breach of professional ethics? And what ethics did Mohamed Bouakkaz breach in matters of protocol? Media outlets for the current regime, some of whom pose as opponents and enjoy political refugee status, have rushed to Tebboune’s aid, putting forward motives as ridiculous as they are absurd. They range from professional misconduct committed during President Tebboune’s trip to Khenchela in the east of the country to… a romantic relationship with a female presidential official. It is this last point that is the Gordian knot of the entire affair. Algerian Ambassador to Cairo Implicated and Relieved of Duty
Investigators from the General Directorate of Internal Security, officially headed for the past week by General Abdelkader Haddad, alias Nacer El-Djen (the demon), began an investigation into Bouakkaz’s relationship with Ms. Farida Sellal, the wife of former Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal. They uncovered a more sinister relationship between Maha, the youngest daughter of the President of the Republic, and her father’s chief of protocol.
Thus, we finally understand that the serious misconduct cited as the reason for Bouakkaz’s dismissal is nothing more than the services rendered to the wife of his former boss, Abdelmalek Sellal. A demonstration of loyalty, nothing more. Ms. Farida Sellal travels extensively between Algiers, Istanbul, and Dubai. She relies on Mohammed Bouakkaz’s interventions with airport customs services. His excessive interventions eventually attracted the attention of the DGSI branch at Algiers International Airport. The initiation of the investigation was facilitated by the protocol director’s opponents, who led directly to Bouakkaz’s romance with Maha, the president’s youngest daughter. Some sources say she is pregnant by her suitor. This is what sent President Tebboune into a rage. Things won’t stop there. The shockwaves will reach the Algerian ambassador in Cairo. Hassan Rabehi, who had barely presented his credentials to the Egyptian Minister of Foreign Affairs on Friday, January 7, was summoned to Algiers 24 hours later. This was unprecedented in the annals of international diplomacy.
Upon his arrival at Algiers airport, his diplomatic passport, cell phones, and computer equipment were confiscated. Without waiting for the Minister of Foreign Affairs to announce the news, he learned it from agents of the DGSI. He was relieved of his post and taken straight from the airport to the notorious Ben-aknoun Main Operational Center (CPO), in the hills above Algiers. There, he would be subjected to a harsh interrogation regarding his connection to the affair between the president’s daughter and the director of protocol. Some sources indicate that he may be in possession of compromising video recordings of Maha Tebboune. From Advisor to the President of the Republic to Detainee in El-Harrach Prison Four months later, in October 2024, Mohamed Bouakkaz was arrested at his home and brought before the public prosecutor, after a visit to the Antar barracks for a harsh and violent interrogation. During his interrogation, he was stunned to find himself questioned on completely irrelevant matters. He was not told about his affair with Maha, the president’s daughter—the real reason for his troubles.
On April 29, he was stunned by the charges he was facing: “abuse of office, illicit enrichment, and acts related to property acquired between 2012 and 2018, and a case involving Rolex watches, “gifts” that he allegedly resold.” During the hearing, the audience witnessed a completely fabricated conspiracy against Mohamed Bouakkaz, without a single mention of his relationship with Tebboune’s daughter. The accusations are a web of blatant lies.
Reading the detailed report of the hearing published in the daily newspaper El-Watan, written by the courageous and seasoned journalist Salima Tlemçani, is enlightening. I am publishing it in full to allow the reader to grasp firsthand the ugly reality of the Algerian justice system under the rule of thugs. “Placed in custody on October 11, 2024, and imprisoned in El Harrach prison (Algiers), four months after his dismissal in June of the same year, “for serious misconduct and breach of ethics” (according to the President’s press release), followed by his retirement, Mohamed Bouakkaz, former presidential advisor in charge of the General Directorate of Protocol, was brought before the Bir Mourad Rais Criminal Court in Algiers last Wednesday. He was charged with “abuse of office” and “illicit enrichment,” related to assets acquired between 2012 and 2018, and a case of Rolex watches, “gifts” that he allegedly resold.
A child of the Bourouba neighborhood, a graduate of the ENA (National School of Administration), and aged 45, Bouakkaz categorically denies the charges. “I am innocent. “I can’t even believe it. I’m traumatized.
During my detention, I suffered a breakdown, for which I’m still taking medication,” he said, irritated, to the judge before the latter asked him to calm down. Bouakkaz lowered his voice, then continued: “Your Honour, I was in charge of the protocol department at the presidency from 2020 to 2024. I was stunned. After a 20-year career during which I held high office, for 12 years, I was the youngest advisor to the Presidency. I carried out my high office with self-sacrifice and sacrifices that earned me a brain tumor in 2021. Despite this, I fulfilled my duties. Despite my health, I managed to organize important events for the country, such as the Arab League summit in 2023 and the gas summit in May 2024. These accusations are unacceptable to me.”
The judge: “The problem is that you’re using cash for the payment.” “It was the bank that forced us to do this for the four payment installments, and instead of transferring the money from my wife’s account to the bank or ENPI, we were forced to withdraw the money from the account and pay it in cash to the bank for ENPI. They explained to us that it was because of the payment slip number that ENPI required. If the transaction were illegal, the bank wouldn’t have accepted it.”
On the issue of the six Rolex watches, Bouakkaz persists in denying their existence, revisiting the conditions under which he was taken into custody and questioned by the judicial police officers. The magistrate calls the defendant’s wife. “You told the investigating judge that your husband sold the five Rolexes he was given to pay for…” he said, before Ms. Bouakkaz replied: “I didn’t even know if those six Rolexes existed. When the judge questioned me about them, stating that it was my husband who admitted to owning six Rolexes, I said, ‘I don’t know, but if he says so, maybe it’s true.’ I didn’t even know what I was saying. I was in the middle of my khol’a (divorce).” The judge: “You wanted to undermine him…” Ms. Bouakkaz: “I didn’t know what I was saying.” The judge asked her if the 10 million dinars given by her husband to Merzak Rouidjali belonged to her, and she replied: “That money belongs to my parents who live abroad. I was going on the pilgrimage with them.” I was afraid to leave the money at home, where there was no one there.”
The judge returned to Bouakkaz and questioned him about the amounts of USD 29,700 and €4,000 found at his home. “I want to laugh. This money was found in two of my children’s piggy banks, each of which has their name on it.”
“They took my two children’s piggy banks.”
Bouakkaz claims that one of these piggy banks contained €2,500 and GBP 1,500. Since they were young, their uncles and maternal grandparents, who live in Great Britain, gave them money for every birthday or other occasion. I taught them to save so they could study abroad later. For the $29,700, there was an amount of $19,500 transferred from my wife’s account to cover part of my children’s tuition for studies abroad. She had sold her jewelry.” The judge turned to Mrs. Bouakkaz, who confirmed her husband’s statements and asserted that she also helped him pay for the house he purchased from ENPI, thanks to “her savings, the sale of her jewelry, and the help of her parents and brothers.”
The judge turned to Bouakkaz: “If I understand correctly, you took advantage of the real estate market…” he told him, which the defendant confirmed, but continued to deny the existence of the Rolex watches. “Do you also deny Rouidjali’s statements, claiming that you asked him to hide the money for fear of an investigation?”
The defendant: “Rouidjali retracted all of his statements before the judge. It’s in the file.” He said that upon his return from his trip, he was arrested at the airport and asked for the contents of the briefcase I had allegedly given him. This briefcase contained the 10 million dinars he had advanced me to buy my brother’s Audi and the 10 million dinars from my in-laws, which I asked him to keep at his house until they returned from the pilgrimage. Why didn’t they investigate the source of his 10 million dinars?”After more than three hours of questioning, the prosecutor requested the maximum sentence of 10 years in prison before Bouakkaz’s defense, composed of four lawyers, Allegue, Chama, Benhabyles, and Tachfine, attempted to dismantle the prosecution’s proceedings, highlighting all the flaws that marred them, and arguing for acquittal.
Mr. Chama began by drawing the court’s attention to the police report. “This report presents Rouidjali as a whistleblower who came to request an investigation into the suspicious origin of the money given to him by the defendant. But during the investigation, he denied everything. He said he was arrested upon his return from abroad at Algiers airport to be questioned about the contents of the briefcase Bouakkaz gave him. Rouidjali confirmed the defendant’s version of the origin of the two amounts. That was in June 2024, and in October 2024, Bouakkaz was arrested and held in police custody for eight days. He is accused of receiving six Rolex watches and selling them without attempting to identify those who purchased these watches for 5 million dinars each,” the lawyer explains. For him, “those who conducted the five investigations into Bouakkaz, before his appointment to sensitive senior positions, should have been prosecuted for not having discovered his illicit enrichment over nearly 20 years.”
Mr. Benhabyles focuses on “what he considers to be a procedural flaw: the failure to notify the investigating judge of the committal warrant in the referral order, which he had informed the defendant on the same document that he had three days to contest.” “He can’t go to prison without a committal warrant,” the judge tells the lawyer, before the prosecutor points out that this decision is drawn up in four copies, one of which is submitted to the prison administration before the defendant’s admission. The lawyer replies: “The documents surely exist internally, but the decision was omitted from the order given to the defendant.”
The judge: “Why didn’t you appeal?” The lawyer: “We weren’t constituted. It was the defendant who sent him from prison, and the indictment chamber didn’t correct the error. It confirmed it.” The magistrate turns to Bouakkaz and asks him if he has appealed. “I did it alone, from prison.” The judge: “So the judge told you that he placed you under arrest and that you had three days to appeal.” Bouakkaz: “Yes, but he didn’t write it down. The administration doesn’t talk. It writes.”
For Mr. Benhabyles, “From the beginning, the case has been handled relentlessly,” he says, before specifying, “instead of questioning Rouidjali about the origin of his funds, which allowed him to open two clinics in 2023, just one year after working with the delegated wali of this daira.” Mr. Allegue describes the case as a “dictionary of procedural errors.”
He begins with the failure to comply with Article 123 bis of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which “requires the judge to inform the defendant of the arrest warrant and his right to appeal within three days. I was about to file a complaint against this arbitrary detention, but the defendant opposed it.”
The lawyer asserts that his client was held in police custody from October 10 to 17, 2024, “that is, for eight days, in violation of the Code of Criminal Procedure,” then continues: “He is not being prosecuted for any charge that allows the judicial police to keep him beyond 48 hours. He is not accused of terrorism, foreign exchange control violations, drugs, corruption, money laundering, etc.
His eight-day police custody, without a judge’s decision, was arbitrary. He does not belong in prison. He must be released.”
Everything was done in violation of the law. Starting with the eight-day police custody, which is unjustifiable. But, in the land of thugs, can we talk about laws and their enforcement?
The case has been adjourned for judgment, and the verdict will be announced on April 23.
By Hichem ABOUD
