French authorities have opened a financial crime investigation targeting Mohammed Bedjaoui, a former Algerian justice minister and ex-president of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), focusing on alleged tax fraud and money laundering. At the heart of the case is a basic question: how did a career jurist, with an official salary in the range of 15,000 euros a month, come to control assets worth many millions of euros, much of it in high‑end French real estate?
According to reports in the French press, the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) is now closely examining the origins of Bedjaoui’s wealth. The process was set in motion last summer when French lawmaker Philippe Latombe filed a formal referral, flagging what he described as serious inconsistencies between Bedjaoui’s official income and his apparent fortune. Latombe’s move is framed as a potential reputational risk for the ICJ itself if allegations of corruption around a major case were to be substantiated.
The controversy traces back to the early 2000s and a bitter territorial and maritime dispute between Qatar and Bahrain over control of gas‑rich offshore areas. The case was heard by the ICJ, which ultimately ruled in favor of Doha in a decision published in 2001. That ruling has long been met with skepticism in some legal and diplomatic circles, but it resurfaced in a new light after a Canadian NGO released material suggesting serious irregularities. In that material, several former ICJ figures, including Bedjaoui’s successor, Stephen Schwebel, reportedly raised concerns about the use of questionable documents and a broader climate of corruption that, they argue, may have compromised the integrity of the judgment.
On the back of these revelations, Latombe approached prosecutors in 2023, asking them to look specifically at Bedjaoui’s role in the Qatar–Bahrain deliberations and at his finances. The Paris financial crimes unit, led by investigating judge Serge Tournaire, has since folded two separate reports into a formal judicial investigation on charges that include corruption, influence peddling, and money laundering. A third strand of the case, now under review by the PNF, zeroes in on the family’s asset base in France.
French investigators are particularly interested in a portfolio of property held by the Bedjaoui family in and around Paris. That real estate is estimated at more than 7 million euros and includes assets in the capital and the affluent Hauts‑de‑Seine department. Prosecutors are asking how such a portfolio could be financed on the basis of a judicial salary and official benefits alone. The concern is not simply that the numbers do not add up; it is that unexplained wealth on this scale may point to hidden financial channels, possibly linked to cases handled during Bedjaoui’s international career.
Several specific financial transactions have attracted scrutiny. One is a transfer of 216,000 euros sent in January 2001 to a Swiss bank account belonging to one of Bedjaoui’s nephews, at the very time the ICJ was deliberating in the Qatar–Bahrain case. Another is the 2011 purchase of an apartment in the upscale Paris suburb of Neuilly‑sur‑Seine for 3.5 million euros. The seller was a branch of the Saudi royal family, which had reportedly acquired the same property earlier for 4 million euros. What stands out for investigators is that these large purchases were made in cash, without any recourse to standard bank loans, suggesting access to substantial off‑balance‑sheet funds.
The French case intersects with an Algerian corruption scandal centered on Sonatrach, the state oil and gas giant. In 2023, an Algerian court convicted Bedjaoui in absentia on corruption charges related to alleged bribes paid in connection with multibillion‑dollar contracts. The judgment led to the issuance of an international arrest warrant. The case implicates several other officials and business figures accused of taking kickbacks to steer major energy deals, and it has opened a window into how political, legal, and commercial networks around Sonatrach allegedly operated.
The Italian judiciary has also touched on the Bedjaoui network in proceedings held in Milan, where a separate branch of the Sonatrach affair was tried. In that context, an independent audit identified large financial flows between Bedjaoui and his nephew, routed through Swiss accounts and totaling around 22 million dollars. These transfers, prosecutors argue, are consistent with the pattern of unexplained enrichment that French and Algerian authorities are now trying to map and, potentially, recover.
The nephew, who holds French citizenship, has reportedly taken steps to evade prosecution. He is said to have obtained Cambodian nationality and changed his name in an effort to complicate efforts to trace and seize his assets or execute warrants. Sources cited in the French media describe this as part of a broader “flight strategy” designed to shield a web of fraud and money laundering that may have caused an estimated 35 million euros in damage on French territory alone.
All in all, the French investigation, the Algerian conviction, and the Italian findings point to a much larger story than the personal fortunes of a retired jurist. For France, the case is about enforcing anti‑corruption and anti‑money‑laundering laws on its soil and protecting the integrity of its financial system from foreign‑linked schemes. For Algeria, it plays into a wider effort to show that it is willing to pursue high‑level graft, especially around strategic sectors like oil and gas. And for the international legal community, the allegations raise uncomfortable questions about how vulnerable even top‑tier courts like the ICJ may be to external influence and how much damage a single compromised actor can do to public trust in international adjudication.
