French prosecutors seek prison for sons of former Yemeni President

French prosecutors have requested prison sentences of four and five years for Ahmed and Khaled Saleh, the sons of former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh. The brothers are suspected of using embezzled funds to invest in luxury real estate in Paris.

The National Financial Prosecutor has requested arrest warrants for the brothers, who are currently located in the United Arab Emirates. The prosecution is also seeking the confiscation of apartments located in Paris’s ‘Golden Triangle’ and millions of euros seized from their bank accounts.

In addition to the Saleh brothers, prosecutors requested a three-year immediate prison sentence for Mohamed A., an asset manager and advisor to Ahmed Saleh, and a two-year suspended sentence plus a 50,000 euro fine for operations manager Chainez C., along with a ban from the real estate sector.

Prosecutors argued that the wealth was the result of ‘systemic’ corruption and embezzlement of public funds by the former president, whose fortune was estimated by a UN expert panel to be between $32 billion and $60 billion. They noted that the former president’s official annual income was approximately $15,300, making the purchase of luxury properties in Paris impossible without the use of illicit funds.