Church Fathers watched Monks' kidnapping by GIA terrorists

Monk Robert said his seven monk friends kidnapped by terrorists in Algeria in March 1996 were almost sure that they would be targetted after the ill-fated attack on two monks in Algiers’ Casbah and five in Tizi Ouzou province (100 km east of Algiers) in 1995.

• “The monks were planning to leave but they changed their minds after the terrorist groups at that time had contacted them,”  Father Robert told Echorouk on the phone.
• “There were 9 monks in the monastery when the terrorists perpetrated their act. Father Hamidi and Father Jean Pierre were watching from a keyhole,” he added.
• One of them described how the terrorists stole medicines in the premises as one of the monks was a doctor.
• Father Robert said he was in Algiers when the monks were kidnapped and was against what a Canadian born Church Father living in France did about the so-called Tibihrine monks’ case.
• “The monk victims’ families refused to bring any action on the operation expect the victim’s brother Christophe.”