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| |  | | Abdelkader Mohamed | | | context : | Algérie  | | judgement place : | France | | status : | Indicted | | particulars : | Accused of crimes against humanity and torture before the District Court of Nîmes | | position : | Member of a Self-defense Group of the Relizane province |
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| | | | Abdelkader Mohamed was born in 1961 in Algeria. He emigrated to France, where he became a citizen and lived near Nîmes until 1994, when his father asked him to return to Algeria to join a self-defense group of the province (wilaya) of Relizane. After he was arrested in March 1998 with a group of twelve militia members, amongst whom were also his father Abed and his brother Hocine (see "related cases"), he returned to France.
Since 1993/ 1994, the Algerian authorities have been arming certain citizens in provinces with a strong presence of armed islamic groups, in order to put them to the fight against terrorism. These militias were known as "Patriotes", or "Self-Defense Groups". They were at times founded on private initiatives, but the majority of these groups was set up at the instigation of the government, which encouraged the public to do so via the press and the State media (television and radio).
In January 1997, these militia groups were publicly acknowledged by decree and officially titled "Self-Defense Groups" («Groupes de Légitime Défense» [GLD]). Supervision over these groups was assigned to an operative sector for the fight against subversive elements. In January 1998, the Algerian Prime Minister informed Parliament of the existence of 5'000 such groups in the country.
According to information from the Fédération internationale des droits de l'homme (FIDH), the GLD in Relizane is said to be responsible for more than one hundert cases of extrajudicial executions and 208 cases of enforced disappearances committed between 1994 and 1998 in the province of Relizane. After mass graves have been discovered in Relizane in 1998, it can be assumed that the victims of the disappearances have been executed and buried on these sites. According to the same source, the militia, together with the military security service and the police, torture anybody they arrest in order to extort information about "terrorist groups" from them, before they make their victims disappear.
Abdelkader Mohamed is suspected, given that he was an executive delegate of the commune ("délégué exécutif communal", [DEC]) of Al H'madena between 1994 and 1997, and therefore responsible for a GLD, of having been involved in the enforced disappearance and the extrajudicial execution of alleged terrorists.
He was indicted on 29 March 2004 by the District Court of Nîmes (France). | |     click for more... | | Trial Watch would like to remind its users that any person charged by national or international authorities is presumed innocent until proven guilty. | |  |  | | last time seen : | | | France | | | charges : | | | Crimes against humanity
Torture | | | profile last modified : | | | 14.09.2008 |
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