On October 27, the Algerian military intelligence services arrested Mustapha Derrar in Tlemcen, in the West, who had been following him since crossing the borders.
The man, according to the army press release, is a terrorist who joined the armed groups in 2012 and who was “released at the beginning of October in Mali, following negotiations carried out by foreign parties. resulting in an agreement, through which more than 200 terrorists were released and a large ransom was paid to terrorist groups against the release of three European hostages ”.
The Franco-Swiss humanitarian had been held hostage by jihadists in Mali since December 2016. She was released on October 8, 2020 at the same time as two Italian hostages and the Malian politician Soumaïla Cissé.
“Questionable practices”
A second terrorist was then apprehended, this time in Timiaouine, in the extreme south of Algeria, near the border with Mali, on November 16. It is, according to the army, El Hocine Ould Amar Ould Maghnia, alias “Maize”, and who is one of the armed elements released as part of the agreement to release the hostages. Here again, the military communiqué denounces “these dubious practices, contrary to UN resolutions criminalizing the payment of ransoms to terrorist groups”.
Met by a journalist fromEl Watan (“After a long procedure”), Mustapha Derrar, alias “al-Djazaïri” (“the Algerian”), whose case is handled by the anti-terrorism judicial section, made some revelations about the famous “deal” denounced by the Algerian soldiers.
The man confides that he joined the armed groups in northern Mali, “which fight the French troops”, in 2012 after his failure to travel to Europe illegally. In the ranks of Mujao, of which he joined one of the camps not far from Gao airport, he is in charge of training Malian children, given his experience as a conscript for military service in the Algerian special troops.
The terrorist camp was targeted, a few months later, by the bombardments of the French air force. With other elements of his group and recruited children, Mustapha Derrar fled in the direction of Kona, but was unable to join the troops of Abdelhamid Abou Zayd and Iyad Ghali, in the midst of clash with the French forces. Holed up in the desert, he was finally arrested by the Malian army, which delivered him to the French based in a barracks in Gao at the end of January 2013.
Negotiations are announced
After several days of interrogation, he is again delivered to the Malians, who carry him from one prison to another, Sévaré, then Bamako. It is between four walls that he learns that “(Mokhtar) Belmokhtar was killed and buried in Libya, that it was he who led the attack on Tiguentourine”. He also learns of “the deaths of many emirs in struggles for money, leadership and smuggling income.”
Seven years later, still in prison, Mustapha Derrar begins to notice that visits by French soldiers “have increased”.
“I learned from some prisoners that negotiations for the release of all the residents of the prison were underway through Iyad Ag Ghali.
At the beginning, we were told of a ransom of six million euros in exchange for the release of the hostages held by Daesh, which held the Italians, and by the group of Iyad, which had kidnapped the French and the Malian. I did not have a precise idea of the negotiations, ”he confided to El Watan.
“But everyone at the prison knew they were all about money. Afterwards, we had known that the sum was around 10 million euros, before reaching 30 million euros. On October 4, 2020, the authorities released 207 terrorists from three major prisons in return for the recovery of the four hostages, ”says Derrar.
Join Iyad Ag Ghali
The “deal” seems to have worked. The Algerian is released with the 70 others who occupied the same prison. They are then transported in Malian army buses to Bamako airport and from there on a military flight to Tigherghart, in northern Mali. On the spot, the Minusma (United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali) takes charge of them and hand them over to elements of the MNLA (National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad).
“The latter took us on board trucks and directed us to an area a hundred kilometers away, where we remained for two days, before another group of more than thirty terrorists joined them, to continue. the road to the camp of Iyad Ag Ghali, located a few hundred kilometers from Kidal, where we stayed for three days ”, testifies Derrar.
“The members of Ansar Eddine asked me to stay with them, to lead the jihad in the great Sahara, but I told them that I was already a member of this organization under the emirate of Abu Adnane Esahraoui (alias Lehbib Ould Ali Ould Saïd Ould Joumani, one of the first terrorist leaders to pledge allegiance to the Islamic State) ”, continues the ex-terrorist.
“Bonus” of 1,000 euros
A “hundred” terrorists joined Iyad Ghali’s camp a few days later, each receiving “a sum of 1,000 euros and a Kalashnikov”, before being redirected to other camps.
“I myself left with about ten elements towards a camp located in Tabankort, a hundred kilometers away, where Emir Hamza asked us to go elsewhere to avoid the shelling by French military planes. I didn’t want to stay. I told the emir that I wanted to return home. He did not refuse. ”
One of the emir’s men gave it to a smuggler who transported it to the Algerian border town of Bordj Badji Mokhtar and even changed it into dinars for the 1,000 euros previously distributed in the Iyad Ag Ghali camp.
Mustapha Derrar went back to northern Algeria and was arrested in his hometown of Tlemcen at the end of October.
The very day before these revelations, the Algerian Prime Minister, Abdelaziz Djerad, was indignant in his speech at the work of the 14e Extraordinary session of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the African Union against the payment of ransoms. “Algeria takes note, with great concern, of the continuation of the transfers, to the benefit of terrorist groups, of colossal funds as ransoms for the release of hostages. An approach which undermines our anti-terrorism efforts ”, declared the Algerian Prime Minister. Paris has always denied paying any ransom to free hostages.
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