Libyan leader El Kaddafi issues pardon decree for Algerians detained in the Jamahiriya
الشروق أونلاين
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Libyan leader Muammar El Kaddafi
The Libyan leader Muammar El Kaddafi has decided to pardon 54 Algerian prisoners detained in Libya for several years after they had been sentenced to long prison terms on various charges including theft and drugs smuggling.President El Kaddafi’s move came in the wake of a series of high-level consultations between the Libyan and Algerian authorities on this vexed issue.
Relatives and parents of these Algerian detainees earlier sent a letter to President Abdellaziz Bouteflika himself in the hope of seeing him intervene personally to secure the release of their convicted next of kin arguing that the sentences handed down against them by Libyan justice were too “harsh and heavy-handed”.
The latter have also alerted the National commission for the promotion and safeguarding of human rights. This commission led by Farouk Ksentini, acted as a go-between between the two sides as part of efforts to find an early and salutary solution to the long-standing detainees’ affair.
As part of their sensitisation campaign, the detainees’ families came from several provinces of Algeria to stage a sit-in outside the premises of the national human rights commission in Algiers in a bid to press for a humanitarian breakthrough to the issue.
In a statement to Echorouk newspaper, Farouk Ksentini hailed the Libyan leader’s clemency measure stressing that it was further evidence of the strong ties of friendship and brotherhood existing between Algeria and Libya .
