A Prisoner Hails Terrorist Acts Inside Skikda Penal Institution

A 23-year-old prisoner at the Punitive Institution in the municipality of Hammadi Karma, in Skikda province (eastern Algeria), who come from Azzaba Daira, praised the terrorist acts.

An agent of the Education Department inspected his room on February 28, 2019, and found a letter message written on it: “From the Emir of the Armed Group in the Azzaba district … to the brother Amir of the Maraj battalion in Karkara … Salam to you, we have carried out the mission entrusted to us in the municipality of Jandal, and Allah Almighty has helped us, al Hamdulillah”.

The agent also noticed phrases written on the suspect’s bed praising terrorist acts, and photographs of the written phrases were taken, and upon interrogation by the director of the penal institution in Hammadi Karma, he confirmed that the letter belonged to him and that he wrote it when he was in the penal institution in Azzaba with another prisoner from the outskirts of the city of Collo who is 20, but he does not remember his name or surname, and he added that he was arrested in the case of beating and intentional wounding, as he heard, according to his claim, the second prisoner speaking and writing phrases that praised terrorist acts, so he, in turn, imitated him, and as for the phrases written on his bed, he claimed that he was not the author and that they even existed before he entered the prison.

During the trial session that took place on Sunday, he confirmed that the letter was in his possession during the inspection, except that he was not the one who wrote it, but rather it was written by a prisoner who was with him in the penal institution in Azzaba, and that he kept the letter with him not for praising terrorist acts or their loyalty, but because he forgot it in his stuff.

For its part, the Public Prosecution confirmed that the accusation fulfils the elements, as evidenced by the presence of burdens against the accused, confirming his praise of terrorist acts by the evidence of finding the letter within his stuff, and he also acknowledged that it belonged to him, although he denied writing it in his hand, claiming that there was another terrorist who was with him and that he is the one who wrote it in Azzaba prison, but he claimed that he did not know his name or surname.

According to the representative of the public right, this is considered a contradiction and an attempt to evade responsibility. Otherwise, how does he explain, according to the prosecutor, that he kept the letter and transferred it from a penal institution in Azzaba to another in Hammadi Karma, in addition to the inspection made by the person responsible for the detention department at the penal institution in Hammadi Karma, accompanied by the alternate, to a place where the accused slept and where he noticed on his bed a phrase praising the terrorist acts, claiming that they existed previously.

The prosecutor pledged 4 years in prison against the prisoner but his defence confirmed that his client is not guilty of the crime attributed to him and demanded the disappearance of the case, and after the deliberation period, the Criminal Court of Appeal at the Skikda Judicial Council reduced, on Sunday, the judgment issued by the Court of First Instance in March,1,2020, from 4 years in prison to two years, against the accused of the felony of praising terrorist acts.