A court in Algeria has sentenced to life imprisonment the leader of the Movement for the Self-Determination of Kabylia (MAK), Ferhat Mheni, for «creating a terrorist organization» and «attacking territorial integrity and national unity».
The Algiers court issued the sentence in absentia against Mheni, who resides abroad, as well as a life sentence against Belabes Brahim, another defendant in the same case, Algerian state news agency APS reported.
Lafdhal Zidane and Butegrabet Munir have also been sentenced to 20 years in prison by the court, which has issued international arrest warrants for the four individuals. Mheni has been living in France for years.
The Algerian government issued in June 2021 an amendment to the Penal Code to expand the definition of «terrorism» and approved the creation of a list of individuals and entities considered by the government as terrorist organizations, a document in which the MAK, which seeks independence for the majority Berber region of Kabylia, was included in May of that year.
Along with the MAK, the opposition Rachad, a movement advocating a peaceful regime change in the country whose founders include former members of the Islamist Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), dissolved by the authorities in 1992 after the outbreak of civil war a year earlier, was designated as terrorist.
The conflict, which lasted until 2002 and left more than 150,000 dead, broke out after the Government, backed by the Army, cancelled the parliamentary elections following the victory of the FIS in the first round, due to its refusal to hand over power to Islamist authorities in the country.
