Algeria Major General Khaled Nezzar responds to Abdelhamid Ibrahim at Echorouk Forum

Retired Major General Khaled Nezzar said he supports Algeria as an Arab-speaking country in response to Algerian former economy minister Abdelhamid Ibrahimi’s remarks broadcast on Al Jazeera, a few days ago.

•  
• “Algeria is an Arab country and I am for it before anything else,” Nezzar told Echorouk’s journalists in Algiers on Sunday.
•  
• Abdelhamid Ibrahim said France’s officers in the Algerian army do not belong to any Arab Islamic tendency.
•  
• “Did Ibrahimi give something to the Arabs like what I gave? Did he go to the Middle East and fight along with Egyptians against Israel as I did? Lets him go and ask Jews and Israelis about Khaled Nezzar and his positions? Did he witness the Libyan and Chadian crisis?” he added.
•  
• “Why doesn’t the former minister talk about what I did when some politicians decided to sent the army to Iraq? I strongly opposed this idea.”
•  
• “Abdelhamid Ibrahim can not do what I did for Arabs however his actions are,” said Nezzar.
•  
• He said his father was in the French army because his grandfather was arrested in the 1916 uprising in the province of Batna (east of Algiers). “My father had to join the French army to release my grandfather.”
•  
•  
• President Boumediene died of blood cancer
•   
• Nezzar said late Algerian president Houari Boumediene was not killed by poison. “The medical report showed that he died of blood cancer. At that time, I called on the Revolution Council’s members to testify in that.”
•  
• This comes to respond former Algerian prime minister Abdelhamid Brahimi for saying national security poisoned President Boumediene.
•  
• “Those accusations were dangerous and baseless.”
•  
• The retired Major General believes that Algeria’s National Liberation Army and the Popular National Army were respecting Boumediene. “There was a special relationship between the army and late President Boumediene.”
•  
• “As I am out of the army now, I say errors made by Boumediene were not on purpose. They were part of world economic tendencies calling for social justice.”
•  
• He called on the rest of the Revolution Council’s members to disclose the medical report to all the Algerian people. “I defy Ibrahimi to have read the medical report as he told Al Jazeera.”
•  
•  
• Nezzar washes hand of Boudiaf killing
•   
• Nezzar said he was not behind the killing of former Algerian Persident Mohamed Boudief in response to his wife’s beliefs that the army was involved in the murder.
•  
• “I was among those who brought him to Algeria and I was close to him. So, why should I kill him?”
•  
• He added that the murder was perpetrated by a member of the army individually. “I had been crying in front of his body for four hours.”
• “When Boudiaf was assassinated, I saw Algeria as a desperate orphan. Algeria had lost the spiritual father of the Revolution.”
•  
• France trial was a blow against ‘who kills who’ supporters
•   
• The Major General said he had come back from on a private plane at night as he was trying to not cause problems between Paris and Algiers. “I did not run away as I returned to Paris and filled a lawsuit against Sweydia.”
•  
• He added that Algeria and France signed an agreement in 1984 on not accepting any lawsuit only if it is filled in the original country.
•  
• “No one filled lawsuit against me in Algeria. That means there is no justification to accept any lawsuit against me in France.”
•  
• “I came back to Paris and sued Sweydia to condemn the supporters of ‘who kills who’ belief.”
•  
• He believes that the lawsuit was an opportunity for Algeria to clarify the image to the world and explain the situation in the country.
•  
•  
• Algeria will be safe for sure
•  
• Nezzar refused to express his opinion about the Algerian army and make a comparison between the past and present.
•  
• “Algeria will be safe for sure. There is no worry about that,” he said.
•  
• He added that the physical and human capacities of the Popular National Army under the leadership of the defence ministry make Algeria safe from any danger.
•  
• “As a retired General, I can not make any comment about the army in which I had been for many years.”
•  
• He also said each official has his own way in management but “the sure thing is that Algeria will be safe with the army.”