Summary: Two Algerian nationals to be tried in France for torture and enforced disappearance

Paris, 6th January 2014: The investigating judge at the High Court in Nimes has issued a final order to send to trial two alleged Algerian torturers residing in France, Hocine and Abdelkader Mohamed. Both are accused of torture and enforced disappearance committed as part of an armed militia group in the Relizane region of Algeria during the 1991-2002 civil war. SRT grantee FIDH filed a complaint in 2003 against the Mohamed brothers along with the League of French Human Rights (LDH), and is representing the seven Algerian victims acting as civil parties to the trial.

This order is the latest development in over 10 years of judicial proceedings. The Nimes Court opened a judicial investigation after FIDH and LDH filed a complaint in October 2003. Hocine and Abdelkader Mohamed were charged accordingly and put under judicial supervision. Thanks to the judicial investigation, decisive testimony was collected against the brothers, and in July 2013 the Public Prosecutor of Nimes called for their indictment before the Criminal Court.

In 2005 Algeria adopted the National Peace and Reconciliation Charter, which prohibited public mention of the civil war and made it impossible to open any judicial proceedings to establish responsibility for crimes committed during this period.

Patrick Baudouin, FIDH Honorary President and Coordinator of the Litigation Action Group, said, “This is the first time ever that Algerians are going to be judged for crimes committed during the “black decade” in Algeria.”

Full press release from FIDH: https://www.fidh.org/International-Federation-for-Human-Rights/north-africa-middle-east/algeria/16734-two-alleged-algerian-torturers-of-the-years-of-lead-will-be-judged-in