Tibhirine Monks’ Families Demand The Hearing Of Bouteflika, Former General Toufik

Families of the French monks, who were assassinated in 1996 in the monastery of Tibhirine, Medea, by a terrorist group, filed a request with the French judicial authorities to hear the former President, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, and the former head of intelligence services, General Mohamed Mediene, also called General Toufik, who is currently detained in military prison.

The lawyer for the monks’ families who filed a lawsuit, Patrick Baudouin, in a letter issued on June 21, according to Agence France-Presse, said that the demands to hear Bouteflika came under the “evolution of the political situation in Algeria”, asserting that this step is coupled with Bouteflika’s improved health situation.

As for the retired General Mohamed Mediene, called Toufik, Patrick Baudouin said, “hearing of General Madine must be as fast as possible.”

Far from the background of this case, it is noteworthy that Tibhirine monks, were kidnapped in March 1996 from their monastery in the area of Tibhirine in the high mountains of Medea, before the GIA, then, claimed in a statement on May 23, 1996 responsibility of their assassination, then security services found on their heads on May,30, 1996.

The French judge has called for the reopening of the case and the dissection of the skulls of the monks, and the questioning of members of the armed Islamic groups, after a dramatic and surprising testimony to the former military attaché at the French embassy in Algiers, the retired general Francois Buchwalter, before his country’s justice, which tried to distort the debate, although the GIA had adopted the operation in May 1996, while the justice had earlier dealt with the case and attributed it to the evidence of terrorist groups.

Moreover, the latest French report issued on March 29, 2018, which included analysis of the skulls of the French assassinated monks by the eight experts was published on the official AFP page, confirmed the involvement of “GIA” in the terrorist operation.

Observers have, on many occasions, over the past few years, observed that Paris has resorted to mobilizing the cause of Tibhirine monks, whenever differences surfaced between France and Algeria in an attempt to relocate and use it as a card of pressurizing and bargaining Algeria.