On 28 August 2023, the Swiss Federal Prosecutor’s Office presented an indictment to the Federal Criminal Court (FCC) 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 sentences, as well as crimes against humanity in the form of murders, which allegedly occurred from January 1992 to January 1994, during the period of the first years of the civil war.
This is the culmination of a procedure that took too long. Almost a dozen years. A case opened on 20 October 2011, when the Algerian general Khaled Nezzar was arrested by the police at the Beau Rivage hotel in Geneva following a criminal complaint by TRIAL International and the complaints of two victims of torture during the black decade.
Interrogated for 48 hours by the Federal Prosecutor’s Office (OAG), he was released on condition that he be present for the continuation of the investigation. In January 2012, General Nezzar lodged an appeal against the legal proceedings he was accused of. “His function as Minister of Defense at the time of the events protected him from possible criminal proceedings in Switzerland. » An appeal rejected by the Federal Court, deeming «that invoking immunity for international crimes (war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide) is excluded. »
The case dragged on and only in August 2014 did the Swiss Confederation Prosecutor’s Office decide to send a draft international letter rogatory to the Federal Office of Justice, but this was only sent to the Algerian authorities on 7 April. , 2015.
In November 2016, the OAG heard General Khaled Nezzar again and confronted him with two of the five complainants, Abdelwahab Boukezouha and Seddik Daadi. The latter ended up withdrawing the 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, former prosecutor of the Blida military court, Ali Haroun and Leïla Aslaoui, two former ministers.
In January 2017 the OAG closed the case finding “that there was no civil war in Algeria during the period for which the former Minister of National Defense is on trial”. A classification of the case against which the civil parties immediately appealed. They win their case. The Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office (MPC) conducted Khaled Nezzar’s final hearing for three days. 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 28 August 2023, Swiss justice announced the indictment and referral to the federal criminal court of Khaled Nezzar, former defense minister and former strongman of the Algerian regime in the early 1990s. This is not happened. they fail to provoke a reaction from the leaders of the “new Algeria”.
“This affair has reached the limits of the unacceptable and intolerable. The Algerian government is determined to draw all the consequences, including the less than desirable ones, for the future of Algerian-Swiss relations”, thundered the Algerian Foreign Minister, Ahmed Attaf, in a telephone interview, addressing his fellow countrymen and counterpart Ignazio Cassis, two days after the announcement of the Swiss MPC. The protest was unsuccessful.
Will the defendant survive to the trial date? There is reason to doubt. 87 years old, seriously ill, so ill that the doctors at the Aïn-Naadja military hospital in Algiers sent him home without the slightest hope of recovery. “He desperately needs to die, he suffers a lot,” confides one of his relatives. So, if by June 2024 Khaled Nezzar is no longer in this world, obviously there will be no trial. However, the Algerians and especially the victims, would have the satisfaction of having made life difficult for the former strongman of the regime through a procedure which at some stages frightened him.
This will also scare away some generals, still in office, who had committed crimes in the same period. We are thinking in particular of General Abdelkader Hadda, alias Nacer El-Djenn, current head of the operations center of the Directorate General of Internal Security (DGSI) and General Hamid Oubelaïd, alias Hocine Boulahia, head of the analysis and research department of the Directorate General 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, current chief of staff of the army and strongman of the regime, accused by a former officer, author of “The War Room” published by “La Découverte” in 2001, of having “killed by shooting of a citizen in the city of Lakhdaria (60 km east of Algiers) in 1993 during a midnight search of his home”.
General Djebbar Mehenna, current head of the DGDSE, also appears 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 injecting olive oil into the veins of people arrested as part of the so-called “fight against terrorism”.
In any case, the proceedings initiated against General Khaled Nezzar and the accusation of crimes against humanity and war crimes brought against him will be marked with a black stone in the history of the Algerian regime which already has dozens of predators languishing, today in prison for economic crimes (embezzlement of public funds, illicit enrichment, abuse of office, money laundering, capital flight, etc.).
It is up to those who have committed crimes against humanity (torture, extrajudicial killings, kidnappings, etc.) to be brought to justice.
2023-12-28 18:26:26
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