For the first time since the outbreak of Algeria’s protest movement in February, several former senior officials and prominent businessmen close to former President Abdelaziz Bouteflika and his circle have been prosecuted on corruption charges and convicted to stiff prison sentences after a speedy four-day trial started Dec. 4.

The hearings marked a historic event, given that it is the first time since Algeria’s independence in 1962 that former heads of government have appeared before a court. Yet the credibility of the process, pushed by a ruling elite led by the military and largely regarded as illegitimate, has been challenged by many among the protesters, or Hirak, who consider it a charade.

“The gang [ruling elite] has no credit to launch such a demagogic and populist operation, [and] … the Hirak have not been fooled and have considered that this campaign is not credible and will not be effective at all,” Djilali Hadjadj, founder and spokesperson of the Algerian Association to Fight Against Corruption, told Al-Monitor.

The cases under investigation concerned the granting of undue privileges to the automobile sector during the fourth mandate of Bouteflika, and the funding of his electoral campaign for a fifth term. The former prime ministers, Ahmed Ouyahia and Abdelmalek Sellal, were among the prosecuted officials, which included several former ministers, and received prison sentences of 15 and 12 years, respectively. The former minister of industry, Abdessalem Bouchouareb, who was at the heart of the scheme and is now on the run abroad, received the harshest sentence of 20 years. The lawyers of the defendants, who have boycotted the hearings, condemned the trial as political and a circus, and have rejected the charges.