Trial of murderers of Maâtoub Lounès to be held in Algiers next December

Well informed sources told the newspaper “Echorouk” that the presumed murderers of the late renowned bard of the Kabylian son and poet, Maâtoub Lounès, would be tried in late December 2009 by the Algiers criminal court.

• The judicial authorities decided to transfer the relevant file from the Tizi Ouzou criminal tribunal to that of Algiers in order to stave off any drifts or untoward incidents during the December trial, according to the same sources.
• Such a decision came in the wake of a series of assessment encounters between judicial and security officials in a bid to ensure the smooth running of the upcoming trial.
• The judge in charge of the complementary inquiry stressed the necessity of summoning 30 main witnesses in addition to several experts to ensure a fair and equitable trial.
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• Out of the 10 defendants accused by the tribunal of premeditated murder and formation of an armed terrorist group, 8 of them are still on the run and will probably be tried in absentia.
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•  In the meantime, the mother of late Maâtoub “Alna Aldjia” has just recorded an album of songs in which she “unmasks” as she put it, the “real” culprits who were behind the cowardly assassination of her son Lounès in June 1998 near the village of Tala Bounane, about 12km from the city of Tizi Ouzou, in eastern Algeria.