Algerian court jails journalist El Kadi for three years

An Algerian court on Sunday sentenced prominent journalist Ihsane El Kadi to three years in prison for "foreign financing of his business" in a case denounced by rights groups.

El Kadi, one of the last independent media bosses in the North African nation as director of the Maghreb Emergent news website and Radio M, was handed a five-year sentence, two years of which are suspended.

The court in Algiers also ordered during the public sentencing the dissolution of the company Interface Medias, the publisher behind El Kadi's two outlets, and the confiscation of its assets.

The company was also fined 10 million dinars (about $73,500), while El Kadi himself was handed a separate 700,000-dinar fine.

His lawyer, Abdelghani Badi, told AFP he would appeal the sentence, though the defence team had boycotted Sunday's session over the "absence of just trial conditions".

The sentence has sparked condemnation among activists and civil society, with the National Committee for the Liberation of Detainees (CNLD) describing it as a "verdict of shame".

Filmmaker Bachir Derrais meanwhile charged that the authorities had "finished one of the best Algerian journalists".

"It is a sad day for the press in Algeria, for democracy and for the country's image," he said.

Following his remand in December, El Kadi was accused of "receiving sums of money and privileges from people and organisations inside the country and abroad in exchange for carrying out activities that could harm state security".

He had faced up to seven years in prison in line with an article in Algeria's penal code which criminalises anyone who receives "funds, a grant or otherwise... to carry out acts capable of undermining state security".

'Ruthless campaign'

In January, Amnesty International said the accusations against El Kadi were "trumped-up state security related offences".

"El Kadi's unjustified detention by the Algerian authorities... is yet another example of their ruthless campaign to silence voices of dissent through arbitrary detention and the closure of media outlets," said Amnesty's Amna Guellali.

Earlier that month, 16 international media figures including Russian journalist Dmitri Muratov, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, called for his release and urged Algeria to lift "unacceptable" restrictions on his media outlets.

El Kadi was sentenced in June to six months in prison but remained at liberty at the time as a warrant was not issued for his arrest.

Paris-based media watchdog Reporters Without Borders, known by its French acronym RSF, previously launched a petition demanding El Kadi's release that was signed by more than 10,000 people.

Algeria ranks 134th out of 180 countries on RSF's 2022 World Press Freedom Index.

Also in January, the Human Rights League (LDH), the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) criticised what they said was a constant attack on freedoms in Algeria since 2019 -- the year protests unseated longtime president Abdelaziz Bouteflika.

The groups accused the authorities of trying to crack down on the Hirak protest movement, pointing to El Kadi's imprisonment and the closure of the Algerian League for the Defence of Human Rights as examples.

"The deterioration of the human rights situation in Algeria is more concerning than ever," the three groups said in a statement at the time.