Public Prosecutor at the National Economic and Financial Penal Pole of the Algiers Judicial Council affirmed, in a statement today, Tuesday, that the preliminary results of the investigation opened in the case of the “Tassili 02” ship, which had returned almost empty from the port of Marseille (France) to the port of Skikda, at the beginning of this month revealed that the operation was “orchestrated with the complicity of officials of the National Maritime Transport Company.”
The statement indicated that “the preliminary results obtained showed that this operation was orchestrated with the complicity of the officials of the company, especially that mobilizing an empty ship only occurs in the case of a large number of reservations abroad.”
The preliminary results also revealed “the intentional use of virtual reservations at the level of the company’s automated reservations information system at the central level to prevent travelers from booking.”
The same source indicated that “given the facts coincided with the date of the departure of the Algerian (Badji Mokhtar 3) ship from the port of Marseille in France to the port of Algiers on 06/02/2022, which is subject to a judicial investigation at the National Economic and Financial Penal Pole, the investigative judge was informed of these facts to include them in the investigation file that was opened against the same defendants and all the other people that the investigation will reveal.”
The statement added that “these facts took place despite the capacity of the said ship amounts to 1,300 passengers and more than 300 vehicles, and despite the presence of a large number of passengers wishing to register for the trip and not enabling them to do so, on the pretext that all seats have been booked in advance.”
