A deserter Algerian gendarme handed over to the Algerian authorities by Spain was sentenced on Wednesday, March 23 to five years in prison for belonging to “a terrorist group”.
Abdallah Mohamed was sentenced by a court in Algiers to five years in prison and a fine of 300,000 dinars (about 2,000 euros) after being found guilty of ” belonging to a terrorist group which commits acts that undermine the safety of state and national unity,” according to the official APS agency. Abdallah Mohamed had been handed over in August 2021 by Spain to the Algerian authorities who had issued an international arrest warrant for him because of his membership in the Islamo-conservative movement Rachad, classified as ” terrorist “.by Algeria. The ex-gendarme, who left Algeria illegally in 2018, was expelled from Spain with around 30 migrants, according to the Algerian press. In mid-March, another Algerian, a former soldier who fled Algeria after taking part in the Hirak protest movement against power and who was sentenced in absentia to ten years in prison, was arrested in Spain and faced with eviction proceedings. According to a source familiar with the matter in Spain, this Algerian, Mohamed Benhalima, is in a detention center for foreigners in Valencia (east). The NGO Amnesty International has called on Spain to “immediately renounce” a possible expulsion of Mohamed Benhalima, claiming that he is a “whistleblower”.
