Public prosecutors in Mauritania have lodged an appeal seeking a harsher sentence of 20 years imprisonment for former president Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, who was earlier convicted of abuse of office and illicit enrichment.
On May 14, an appeals court sentenced Aziz to 15 years behind bars for exploiting his position to amass significant wealth.
Aziz has been detained since the start of his original trial in January 2023, which initially resulted in a guilty verdict and a five-year sentence that he challenged through an appeal.
Authorities estimate that Aziz, who seized power in a 2008 coup and ruled until 2019, accumulated assets and capital totalling approximately $70 million during his presidency.
The appeals court also upheld the confiscation of Aziz’s property and revoked his civic rights this month.
However, prosecutors filed a request on Thursday for a 20-year sentence, according to a judicial source who spoke anonymously to AFP on Friday.
A member of the civil party’s defence team later confirmed that an appeal had indeed been submitted.
Aziz, aged 68, led Mauritania—a country bridging the Maghreb and sub-Saharan Africa—for more than a decade, bringing relative stability to a nation previously beset by coups and jihadist violence.
He is among the few former leaders to be convicted of illicit enrichment while holding office.
