{"id":634669,"date":"2025-12-15T21:08:19","date_gmt":"2025-12-15T21:08:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/634669\/"},"modified":"2025-12-15T21:08:19","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T21:08:19","slug":"france-to-try-sons-of-yemen-ex-president-saleh-on-fraud-charges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/634669\/","title":{"rendered":"France to try sons of Yemen ex-president Saleh on fraud charges"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n      The sons of Ali Abdullah Saleh, Ahmed and Khaled, will stand on trial in September next year [Getty\/file photo]<\/p>\n<p>A French court is to try two sons of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newarab.com\/news\/son-ex-yemen-president-saleh-sentenced-death-houthis\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Yemen&#8217;s late ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh<\/a> next year over allegedly embezzling public funds that bought the clan flats in Paris, prosecutors said on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>His eldest son, Ahmed Ali Saleh, and another son called Khaled Saleh are to stand trial in September 2026, the Paris financial prosecutor&#8217;s office said.<\/p>\n<p>Anti-government protests, including over poverty and corruption, led to Ali Abdullah Saleh stepping down from power in 2012 following three decades of rule.<\/p>\n<p>He then allied with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newarab.com\/news\/yemens-houthis-release-survivors-ship-sunk-red-sea\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Houthi rebels<\/a> he had once fought in the north of the country, but after they seized the capital Sanaa in 2014, they killed the former president in 2017.<\/p>\n<p>French prosecutors in charge of financial crime in 2019 opened a probe into suspicious fund transfers between Geneva and Paris, following a tipoff from Swiss authorities.<\/p>\n<p>It found that a real estate company involving Ahmed Ali Saleh was used to buy at least two flats worth millions of euros in high-end parts of Paris, near the Champs-Elysees and the Arc de Triomphe.<\/p>\n<p>The eldest son had received 30 million euros ($35.3 million) from Sanaa in a French bank account in his name. It was not immediately clear when these transfers were made.<\/p>\n<p>Ahmed Ali Saleh has been under US and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newarab.com\/news\/yemen-un-council-extends-houthi-sanctions-nine-months\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">UN sanctions since 2015 <\/a>for supporting the Iran-backed Houthi movement that has been fighting against the UN-recognised government.<\/p>\n<p>Lawyers Clara Gerard-Rodriguez and Pierre-Olivier Sur said that their clients had done nothing illegal.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Simply saying that regime was corrupt in no way proves that it was money from corruption that enabled his sons to purchase property in France,&#8221; Gerard-Rodriguez said.<\/p>\n<p>Yemen has long been the Arabian Peninsula&#8217;s poorest nation, with more than half the population living in poverty by the end of 2011, according to the World Bank.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The sons of Ali Abdullah Saleh, Ahmed and Khaled, will stand on trial in September next year [Getty\/file&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":634670,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5309],"tags":[195949,2000,299,36,349,11853],"class_list":{"0":"post-634669","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-ali-abdullah-saleh","9":"tag-eu","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-france","12":"tag-fraud","13":"tag-yemen"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115725631961821231","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=634669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634669\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/634670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=634669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=634669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=634669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}