2023-12-28 18:26:26
On August 28, 2023, the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the Swiss Confederation sent an indictment to the Federal Criminal Court (TPF) against Algerian general Khaled Nezzar. The charges against the former Algerian general are serious: they include war crimes in the form of torture, inhuman treatment, arbitrary detentions and convictions as well as crimes against humanity in the form of assassinations which allegedly took place January 1992 to January 1994, during the first years of the civil war.
This is the culmination of a procedure that took an excessive amount of time. Almost a dozen years. A procedure opened on October 20, 2011, when Algerian general Khaled Nezzar was arrested at the Beau Rivage hotel in Geneva by the police following a criminal denunciation from TRIAL International as well as complaints from two victims of torture during the black decade.
Questioned for 48 hours by the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the Confederation (MPC), he was released on condition of being present for the continuation of the investigation. In January 2012, General Nezzar appealed against the prosecutions for which he was accused. object maintaining that “his function as Minister of Defense at the material time protected him from possible criminal prosecution in Switzerland. » An appeal rejected by the federal court, considering “that it is excluded to invoke immunity for international crimes (war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide). »
The case dragged on and it was not until August 2014 that the Public Prosecutor’s Office (MPC) of the Swiss Confederation decided to send a draft international letter rogatory to the Federal Office of Justice, but it was only transmitted to the Algerian authorities on April 7, 2015.
In November 2016, the MPC heard General Khaled Nezzar again and confronted him with two of the five complainants, Abdelwahab Boukezouha and Seddik Daadi. The latter ended up withdrawing his complaint and was returned by the Algerian secret services. To accentuate the slowness of the procedure, General Nezzar registered 105 witnesses in his favor including retired colonel Belkacem Boukhari, the former public prosecutor of the Blida military court, Ali Haroun and Leïla Aslaoui, two former ministers.
In January 2017 the MPC closed the case considering “that there was no civil war in Algeria, during the period for which the former Minister of National Defense is being prosecuted”. A classification of the case against which the civil parties immediately filed an appeal. They win their case. The Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office (MPC) conducted the final hearing of Khaled Nezzar over three days. From February 2 to 4, 2022. It states that “numerous war crimes and crimes against humanity were committed while Mr. Nezzar led the military junta and served as Minister of Defense at the start of the Algerian civil war. »
A year and a half later, on August 28, 2023, Swiss justice announced the indictment and referral to the federal criminal court of Khaled Nezzar, former minister of defense and former strongman of the Algerian regime in the early years. 1990. This did not fail to provoke a reaction from the leaders of “new Algeria”.
“This affair has reached the limits of the unacceptable and intolerable. The Algerian government is determined to draw all the consequences, including those which are far from desirable for the future of Algerian-Swiss relations,” thundered, in a telephone interview, the Algerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ahmed Attaf. , addressed to his Swiss counterpart Ignazio Cassis, two days after the announcement of the Swiss MPC. The protest was unsuccessful.
All that remained was to set the date for the trial of the old general who had been on the verge of death for several days. Yesterday the news broke. The trial will be held in Bern from June 14 to 17, 2024. That is to say, we would have to wait another six months for justice to be done to the victims of General Nezzar’s crimes.
Will the accused survive until his trial date? There is reason to doubt. Aged 87, seriously ill, so ill that doctors at the Aïn-Naadja military hospital in Algiers sent him home without the slightest hope of recovery. “He is desperate for death, he is in so much pain,” confides one of his relatives. So, if by June 2024 Khaled Nezzar will no longer be in this world, there would obviously be no trial. Nevertheless, the Algerians and particularly the victims, would have the satisfaction of having made life difficult for the former strong man of the regime through a procedure which gave him fright at some of its stages.
This will also scare certain generals, still in office, who had committed crimes during the same period. We think in particular of General Abdelkader Hadda, alias Nacer El-Djenn, the current head of the operational center of the General Directorate of Internal Security (DGSI) and General Hamid Oubelaïd, alias Hocine Boulahia, head of the analysis and research department of the General Directorate of Documentation and External Security (DGDSE) and General Abdelkader Aït-Ouarabi, alias General Hassan, accused by a former non-commissioned officer, who worked under their orders, of having coldly executed dozens of Algerians in a barracks located on the heights of Algiers.
Army General Saïd Chengriha, the current Chief of Staff of the army and strong man of the regime, accused by a former officer, author of “The War Room” which was published by “La Découverte” in 2001 of having “shot dead a citizen in the town of Lakhdaria (60 km east of Algiers) in 1993 during a search carried out at midnight at his home”.
General Djebbar Mehenna, the current head of the DGDSE, is also on the list of alleged war criminals. He is accused of throwing citizens accused of terrorism from helicopters during the bloody decade. He is also accused of having injected olive oil into the veins of people arrested as part of what was called “the fight against terrorism”.
Regardless, the procedure launched against General Khaled Nezzar and the accusation of crimes against humanity and war crimes brought against him is to be marked with a black stone in the history of the Algerian regime which already counts dozens of predators who are languishing, today in prison for economic crimes (embezzlement of public funds, illicit enrichment, abuse of office, money laundering, capital flight, etc.).
It is the turn of those who committed crimes against humanity (torture, extrajudicial executions, kidnappings, etc.), to be brought to justice.
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