Of the fifteen people originally prosecuted by the Algerian courts, at least seven were killed by the army. The defendants, who will appear free, are accused of “having accommodated a foreigner without authorization”.
The trial of five Algerians in connection with the assassination of Hervé Gourdel, a French mountain guide kidnapped and beheaded in 2014 by jihadists in Algeria, will begin on February 4 in Algiers, learned on Tuesday January 26. ‘AFP corroborating sources.
Fifteen Algerians were originally prosecuted, but at least seven of them were killed by the Algerian army, including the alleged kidnapper, according to a judicial source.
It is therefore the five guides of the Nice guide – Karim Oukara, Hamza Boukamoum, Oussama Dehendi, Amine Ayache and Kamel Saâdi – who will appear free on February 4 before the court of Dar El-Beida, in the suburbs of Algiers, in particular for ” to have accommodated a foreigner without authorization ”, indicated this source. Asked by AFP, two of the attendants declined to speak, but they confirmed the date of the trial.
Hervé Gourdel, 55, was kidnapped on September 21, 2014 in the heart of the Djurdjura massif in Kabylia (north of the country) then beheaded. The five Algerian hikers accompanying him were released after being held for several hours.
The assassination of Mr. Gourdel was claimed by Jund Al-Khilafa (“the soldiers of the Caliphate”), a dissident group of Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) having pledged allegiance to the organization Islamic State (IS) . Jund Al-Khilafa had claimed to have executed him in retaliation for France’s involvement with the United States in the strikes against ISIS in Iraq.
Vast sweeping operation
The body of the climber was found buried in a field in January 2015 during a large army search operation, about fifteen kilometers from the place of his abduction, on the basis of indications from a jihadist stopped.
Algerian justice had launched proceedings against 15 people suspected of having participated in this kidnapping and accused in particular of “creation of an armed terrorist group”, “hostage-taking” and “murder with premeditation”.
In July 2016, the authorities assured that they had almost completely eliminated the jihadist group that executed the Frenchman.
The alleged leader of Jund Al-Khilafa, Abdelmalek Gouri, was shot dead in late December 2014 in the wilaya (prefecture) of Boumerdès, in the north of the country.
Between 1992 and 2002, a civil war in Algeria between armed Islamist guerrillas and security forces left some 200,000 dead.
Despite the implementation in 2005 of a Charter for Peace and Reconciliation, supposed to turn the page of this “black decade”, small Islamist armed groups remain active, particularly in the center-east of the country, where they are moving. usually take to security forces.
