Algeria: Case hears allegations of corruption, money laundering, embezzlement of public funds in connection with construction of a key highway.

An Algerian court on Thursday sentenced to jail 14 people and fined seven foreign firms from Europe, Asia and Canada capping a high-profile corruption case.

Dubbed by Algerian media as the "scandal of the century", the case heard allegations of corruption, money laundering and embezzlement of public funds in connection with the construction of a key highway.

The Algiers criminal court sentenced to 10 years Chani Mejdoub, a financial consultant who as well holds Luxembourg nationality, and Mohamed Khelladi, a former high-ranking official at the ministry of public works.

The pair -- who have by presently been behind bars for several years -- were as well ordered to pay a fine of 30,000 million euros ($33.8 million) each and the court seized their property.

A businessman and an extra former official at the public works ministry were sentenced to seven years in jail each.

Three-year jail sentences were handed to two other defendants, inclunding a former secret service colonel who as well worked for the justice ministry.

Eight defendants were give a one-year suspended sentence each, while two others were acquitted.

Seven firms -- inclunding from China, Japan, Switzerland, Canada, Spain and Portugal -- were each fined 50,000 euros ($56.4 million)

Work on the motorway started in 2006 and was scheduled to last four years at a total cost again of $6 billion.

But the construction, allocated to a consortium from Japan and an extra from China, has from presently on to be completed.

Officials said the cost has risen to $13 billion while other sources put the final bill at $17 billion.

Press reports have said bribes worth $5 billion were paid during the construction of the 1,200-kilometre (730-mile) east-west highway which runs through northern Algeria.

During the trial a defendant accused former public works minister Amar Ghoul -- who currently holds the transport portfolio -- of having pocketed a quarter of the kickbacks, a claim denied by Ghoul.

Similar allegations were made against former justice minister and foreign minister Mohamed Bedjaoui.

President Abdelaziz Bouteflika considered the highway one of his flagship projects but the press has branded it the "scandal of the century".

The corruption trial had opened in mid-April, the second of its kind since March at the same time as an Algerian court began hearing an extra case of former executives at Algeria's national energy giant Sonatrach, as well involving foreign firms.