An Algerian military appeals court on Saturday acquitted the brother and ex-adviser of deposed President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, Saïd Bouteflika, and two former intelligence bosses, according to the official APS agency.
The three men, as well as the activist Louisa Hanoune, had been sentenced to 15 years in prison for "conspiracy" against the army and the state.
A military appeals court in Algeria on Saturday acquitted Saïd Bouteflika, the brother and ex-adviser of ousted President Abdelaziz Bouteflika and two former intelligence bosses, who had been sentenced to 15 years in prison for "conspiracy" against the army and the state, the official APS agency said.
According to a judicial source, Saïd Bouteflika will be transferred to another prison pending his trial in other corruption-related cases during his brother's 20 years in power.
The four acquitted were accused of having drawn up "a plan of destabilization"
In addition to Saïd Bouteflika, generals Mohamed Mediène, known as "Toufik, and Athmane Tartag, as well as the Trotskyist activist Louisa Hanoune, convicted in this case, were acquitted on appeal by the military court of Blida, near Algiers, according to the report. Defense lawyer, Me Khaled Berghel, quoted by the official APS news agency. Arrested in May 2019, the four defendants were sentenced in September of the same year to 15 years' imprisonment in a flash trial before the military court of Blida, for "conspiracy against the authority of the State and the army".
"After the reading of the case on assistance by the president of the Military Court of Appeal of Blida, the accused Saïd Bouteflika, Mohamed Mediène, Athmane Tartag and Louisa Hanoune were all heard and pleaded not guilty", explained the lawyer.
"After deliberation, the court (...) rendered the decision to annul the judgment at first instance and to acquit all the accused," he said.
This was the third trial in the case after the Algerian Supreme Court accepted in November the cassation appeal of Saïd Bouteflika and his co-defendants.
The four acquitted were accused of having met in March 2019 to develop a "destabilization plan" for the high command of the army, which then publicly requested the departure of President Bouteflika to get out of the crisis born of Hirak, the unprecedented popular uprising which forced the former head of state to resign in April 2019.