ALGIERS (AFP)
An Algerian court handed a life sentence on Tuesday to Gharbia Amar, an Islamist convicted of participating in the 2003 kidnapping of 15 foreign tourists, including 10 Germans, in the Sahara desert.
A Malian, Youcef Ben Mohamed, was acquitted of the same charge but given a seven-year jail term for belonging to “an armed terrorist group” and smuggling illegal weapons, one of their lawyers, Hassiba Boumerdassi, said.
Amar was also convicted on the arms trafficking charge.
“The judgement is not satisfactory, because both of them were held for six years by the Chadian authorities,” who arrested them in 2004 before handing them over to the Algerians in 2010, Boumerdassi said.
The prosecution had requested the death penalty for Amar, 39, and life in prison for Ben Mohamed, who both served Amari Saifi, alias Abderrazak El-Para, the detained former number two of an armed Algerian Islamist group that later merged with Al-Qaeda.
The 15 tourists kidnapped in February 2003 in southern Algeria, close to the Malian border, were all eventually released.
Saifi, who the Algerian authorities accuse of orchestrating the kidnappings, has been in custody awaiting trial since 2004.
Amar’s lawyer Amine Sidhoum had repeatedly demanded El Para’s appearance at the trial, refusing to cooperate with the court in his absence, prompting the judiciary to appoint another lawyer, to avoid further delays.
Another client of Sidhoum, Kamel Djermane, who served as a close aide to Saifi and has also been implicated in the 2003 kidnapping of tourists, appealed last month against charges that include belonging to an armed terrorist group.
The Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), which the accused were members of, changed its name to Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Magreb in 2007, after announcing its affiliation with the international jihadist network.
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