Algerian prosecutors request Bouteflika's brother, 20 years in prison

Yesterday, the Military Appeals Board Prosecutor requested a 20-year prison sentence for Said Bouteflika, brother of former Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, and former officials.

The prison request included intelligence officials, in addition to Louisa Hanoun, the leader of the Labor Party, on charges of "prejudice the authority of the army" and "conspiracy against the state's authority," according to lawyers.

The day before yesterday, the trial of the four accused, imprisoned since May, began after the appeal was accepted in the 15-year prison sentences imposed on September 25, 2019 in the Military Court in Blida, south of the Algerian capital.

And the trial started on its second day yesterday, in a closed session that was devoted to the prosecution case, as attorney Farouk Kassantini told AFP.

Ksentini defends the retired Lieutenant General Mohamed Madian, who is best known for General Tawfiq, the former head of the DRS, which was the name given to intelligence between 1990 and 2015.

Given the great powers he had enjoyed over 25 years of his leadership of the apparatus, some believed that he had turned intelligence into a "state within a state." Yesterday morning, Louisa Hanoun, the leader of the Labor Party, requested the defense of innocence, according to one of her nine lawyers, Boujemaa Gachir. In addition to General Tawfiq and Louisa Hanoun, the accused, Said Bouteflika (62 years), has been represented by an advisor to former President Abdelaziz Bouteflika since 1999.

As for the fourth suspect, he is the retired Major General, former assistant general Tawfiq, and succeeded him to the post after his resignation in 2015, Bashir Tariq, coordinator of security services, after restructuring and appending him to the presidency. He left his post after Bouteflika resigned.

The four defendants were imprisoned in May 2019 in a case related to a meeting attended by Said Bouteflika, Medin, Tarak and Hanoun on March 27, 2019, to lay down a plan to "dismiss the deceased chief of staff" Lieutenant-General Ahmed Qaid Saleh, following his public demand for the resignation of the President of the Republic to emerge from the crisis that began with the protest movement Last February 22.

• The prison request included intelligence officials, as well as Labor Party President Louisa Hanoun.