Algeria: “Promises by state authorities to release political prisoners”

Former chieftain in the now-disbanded “Islamic Salvation Army” (AIS) for the western region, Ahmed Ben Aïcha, has affirmed having been given promises by state authorities to resolve the pending political prisoners’ issue as part of the deepening and consolidation of the Charter for peace and national reconciliation.

Ben Aïcha told Echorouk that he was waiting together with other people concerned by this salutary process, for the announcement by the relevant authorities of additional measures to this effect.

He added that the expected measures would lead to the release from prison of numerous political prisoners and clear the way for the straightening out of the vexed file of those people victimized during the so-called black decade of 90’s due to the scourge of terrorism.

 Ahmed Ben Aicha also asserted that the latter had been given promises and assurances in the wake of President Bouteflika’s re-election for a fourth term in last April 17 elections that a timetable would be drawn up by the state authorities with a view to settling these problems for good after the proper examining of all the related files.

 For his part, Mustapha Ghazal, who is the coordinator of the families of political prisoners, pointed out that dozens of political detainees, tried tentatively by military courts, had been lingering in detention for more than 20 years now.

 He indicated that many of these trials had been swiftly expedited and the verdicts handed down against the defendants were not based on documented and tangible evidence of wrongdoing, as he put it.

 Mr Ghazal further underlined that 140 of them were still being detained in the prisons of Béchar, Oran, Berrouaghia, Blida, Batna, Annaba, El Harrach, and Ouargla despite the fact that they should have benefited like many other inmates from the clemency provisions of the Charter for peace and national reconciliation which sealed off the “national tragedy” of the nineties in Algeria.