A ruling in a legal case that has been causing diplomatic friction between Algeria and France for several months was announced in a concise statement by the judge of the Dar El-Beïda court, located near Algiers, on the morning of Thursday, March 27.
Boualem Sansal, a French-Algerian author who was arrested on November 16 in Algeria and held in pre-trial detention, received a sentence of five years in prison along with a fine of 500,000 dinars (€3,470). The judge conveyed this information in Arabic while Sansal, who remained stoic, approached the judge to express that he did not fully comprehend the ruling. The judge then reiterated the sentence in French for clarity.
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The possibility of a life sentence has been dismissed. The allegations against Sansal were quite severe. He is accused by the Algerian government of making statements in the far-right French publication Frontières regarding Western Algeria’s ties to Morocco. He faced prosecution under Article 87 bis of the Algerian Penal Code for actions deemed to threaten state security, territorial integrity, and institutional stability. Additionally, he was charged with colluding with foreign entities, specifically accused of sharing “sensitive information and intelligence of a security and economic nature” with the former French ambassador to Algeria, Xavier Driencourt.
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