{Two Algerian men accused of committing torture during the country\u2018s civil war in the 1990s are to be tried at a court in France, plaintiffs in the case said Tuesday.}<\/p>\n
The brothers were indicted on December 26 by the Nimes Tribunal in southern France, according to a statement issued by the Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the French Human Rights League (LDH).<\/p>\n
Both organizations filed a complaint in 2003 against the brothers, Hocine and Abdelkader Mohamed, prompting a judicial inquiry.<\/p>\n
Over the following decade, the court took testimony from people who claimed to have witnessed the brothers conduct executions and torture during bloody clashes between Islamist insurgents, state-sponsored militias and security forces.<\/p>\n
“This is the first time ever that Algerians are going to be judged for crimes committed during the \u2018black decade\u2018 in Algeria,” FIDH President Patrick Baudouin said in the statement.<\/p>\n
While Hocine and Abdelkader Mohamed both reside in France, the case is based on the principle of universal jurisdiction under the UN torture convention.<\/p>\n
The statement cites similar cases as a basis for the complaint, such as a 25-year sentence handed down to Pascal Simbikangwa by a French court last March for crimes against humanity committed during the 1994 Rwanda genocide.<\/p>\n
The Mohamed brothers, who allegedly headed state-backed militias in Relizane, approximately 300 kilometres west of Algiers, can appeal the court\u2018s order.<\/p>\n
An estimated 200,000 people were killed during Algeria\u2018s civil war in the 1990s.<\/p>\n
{{Europe Online Magazine}}<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{Two Algerian men accused of committing torture during the country\u2018s civil war in the 1990s are to be tried at a court in France, plaintiffs in the case said Tuesday.} The brothers were indicted on December 26 by the Nimes Tribunal in southern France, according to a statement issued by the Paris-based International Federation for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2000055756,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-18155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000055756,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton18155.gif","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/gif","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton18155.gif","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton18155.gif","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton18155.gif","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton18155.gif","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton18155.gif","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18155\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000055756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18155"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=18155"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=18155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}