Meceli affair: Charged Algerian diplomat Mohamed Ziane Hasseni free to leave France.

The appeal court of Paris has ruled on Friday in favour of the provisional lifting of the judicial probation imposed since August 2008 on Algerian diplomat Mohamed Ziane Haseni falsely accused of involvement in the murder of lawyer and activist Ali Meceli in 1987 in the French capital.  

• The appeal court ruling thus allows Hasseni to leave France for Algeria pending trial.
• One of his lawyers, Khaled Lasbeur said that the Hasseni file was now evolving in a positive way after the presentation of all the necessary evidence proving the innocence of the Algerian diplomat.
• However, for the lawyer of the Meceli family, the affair is being “buried”.
• According to Khaled Lasbeur, Hasseni should now simply reply to the summons of the examining magistrate and refrain from traveling to Germany, the country of residence of a witness in the case.
• In order to prove his innocence, the Algerian diplomat was confronted with one of the so-called witnesses and voluntarily submitted himself to AND testing in France.
• This virtually cleared him of all the charges levelled wrongly against him, asserted his lawyer.
•  Mohamed Ziane Hasseni has always strongly endeavoured to prove his innocence in this murky assassination affair, stressing that he is the hapless victim of a gross “mistaken identity”.