Farouk Ksentini: “ANP is not involved in the Tibhirine Monks’ affair”

According to the latest statements made earlier this week in Algiers by the French Justice Minister, Mrs Christiane Taubira, it appears that the French Government does not intend to seal, after nearly 20 years, the vexed case of the murders of the seven Trappist Monks of the Monastery of Tibhirine in central Médéa province.

The president of the Consultative Commission for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, Farouk Ksentini, said in a reaction that the French side is still looking after all that time, for the murderers of these Monks, stressing that this horrendous act was committed by terrorists who assassinated them, adding that the Algerian side had in no way hindered the procedures as evidenced by the visit to Algeria by French judge Marc Trevidic who accomplished his fact-finding mission in Algeria as he wanted.

Mr Ksentini surmised that the French side wanted to give a political dimension to a criminal case by lamely accusing the Algerian people’s Army (ANP) for those killings and tarnishing by the same token the reputation of Algeria.

“The ANP is in no way responsible for these heinous murders and, what was the purpose for that”, Farouk Ksentini underscored.

This whole controversy has been fuelled of late in France for sheer electoral purposes in expectation of the French presidential election of 2017, to garner votes, according to Mr Ksentini.

In another matter, Mr Farouk Ksentini denied that the Algerian justice has opened investigations into cases of disappearances during the national tragedy of the nineties because the limitation periods have been set for ten years and that the provisions of the Charter for peace and National Reconciliation don’t allow for any extension of this time-limit.