Terrorist groups planned attack on Echorouk premises in 2007

The public prosecutor of the court of Algiers yesterday sentenced to 20 years imprisonment three individuals charged with providing photos of several official buildings in Algiers to terrorist groups in the aim to blow them up after the twin attacks on the Constitutional Council and the UN building in the end of 2007.

• The three convicts have refuted the charges and denied all relationships with the terrorist groups.
• The three criminals were assigned the task by the terrorist groups operating in the provinces of Tizi Ouzou and Boumerdes with taking photos of several sensitive buildings including the British diplomats’ residency, the UN premises in Algiers, blown up by Bechla Rabeh, the US embassy, Danish embassy, the Popular Assembly, the officers’ club, and the presidential palace.
• According to the criminals’ revelations, the terrorists were plotting to carry out an attack against Echourok premises using a stratagem which consisted in sending one of their elements undercover of a journalist working on the writing of a book on the situation  in Algeria. The terrorist’s task consisted in collecting information on the movements of newspaper’s managers and the personnel alike in order to blow up its premises.
• Echorouk unmasked their plot
• The terrorist organization has renewed the attempt in the beginning of 2008 after the failure of the first one when they summoned some of their elements to spy on the personnel of the newspaper and the main exits. The terrorist organization earlier virtually attacked the newspaper through the posting of allegations on the web targeting its managers in order to sully the newspaper’s reputation.
• The newspaper’s publisher Ali Fodhil was himself targeted by the terrorists in March 2008 through SMS, but the wrongdoer was arrested and brought before the judge who sentenced him to two years imprisonment.
• It should be noted that then- called  Echourok Al Arabi has lost two journalists and the administration manager killed by the terrorists during the black decade in addition to a journalist from Echourok Al Yaoumi and one journalist from Echourok culture was injured in the mid 1990s.