Tunisia – Hatem Al Achi referred to financial judicial Pole

The investigating judge at the Economic and Financial Judicial pole ruled to refer former Minister of State Property, Hatem Al-Achi, to the district court to be tried on suspicion of corruption in the file of the “Tunis Sports City” project, according to the “Raqaba” Observatory in its report issued today, Thursday, January 11, 2024.

The Observatory said it had been notified by the investigating judge of the Economic and Financial Judicial Pole of the decision to close the investigation linked to the conflict of interest and suspicions of corruption against Al-Achi and to refer him for the crimes stipulated in article 97 third of the Penal Code.

On August 17, 2022, the Observatory lodged a complaint with the public prosecutor at the Court of First Instance of Tunis involving a situation of conflict of interest and suspicions of corruption linked to the former Minister of Lands of the State, and attorney Hatem Al-Achi in the file of the “Tunis Sports City” project for the Emirati group Boukhatir.

The Observatory clarified that the file concerns the former Minister of State Domains intentionally acting on behalf of “International Sports City Company Tunisie”, the branch of the Emirati Boukhatir group in Tunisia, as a lawyer, “in blatant conflict of interest, given that he had, following his responsibilities as a ministry, access to confidential data concerning the file.

Remark that the Tunisian State contributes up to 49.999 percent of the capital of the Buhaira Development and Investment Company (income from State contributions is estimated at 170 million dinars over the period 2020 to 2023, according to the data provided by the Observatory.