The case dates back to 2018. The Algerian security services arrested several people accused of spying for the benefit of France. The main accused, whose trial opened in Algiers on Tuesday, November 10, is Z. A, presented by the Algerian media as a “drug lord” installed in France.
Returned to Algeria via the Houari-Boumédiène airport in Algiers in 2010, Z. A was arrested by the border police under an international warrant issued against him, before being cleared in November 2011 by the Tizi court -Ouzou (Kabylie), city where he is from. Z. A resumed his life in Algeria and opened a motorcycle repair shop before being caught up, in 2017, by a pending case in France for money laundering and drug trafficking. Algerian justice then places him under judicial control.
Network of informants
In the meantime, Z. A befriends an Algerian police inspector who introduces him to R., “a (French) security employee at the French embassy in Algiers”, according to the Algerian press. The latter even went to Z. A’s workshop to buy a motorcycle. Z. A admits before the judges, this Tuesday, November 10, having then met several times the French official, who was trying to get his car out of the port of Algiers. The situation is unblocked thanks to contacts between Z. A and a Customs employee at the port. The accused continues his story by explaining to the courts that during the summer of 2017, R. introduced him to “new employees of the interior security of the embassy”, another French, S., and a Franco-Algerian, BK “B. K was working under the cover of a simple technical employee at the embassy,” the press said.
The Algerian then met B. K several times at his home in the Peltzer park of the French embassy, on the heights of Algiers in Hydra. “Helped by his friend the inspector and another commissioner officiating at the airport of Algiers, Z. A provides BK with information on several Algerians, some of whom live in France”, explains a daily report. Ennahar. “This information was then transmitted” to a divisional commissioner and internal security attaché at the French embassy “who often traveled in BK’s vehicle”, continues the Arabic-speaking daily.
A probe at the police
According to Ennahar, the information sent by WhatsApp and Viber to Z. A also concerned changes in the police force, such as the dismissal, in June 2018, of the former head of the National Security, Major General Abdelghani Hamel (in prison for acts of corruption) or that, in July 2018, of the boss of the border police at Algiers airport, the divisional commissioner Lahcen Hassaïne. According to justice, Z. A also sent details on these changes and on “infighting within the police”.
The other “matter” sent by Z. A would concern information related to the activity of the port of Algiers, in particular through its links with an officer of the judicial police at the port in charge of monitoring ships and sailors. “The security services seized from the phone of the accused consignments to B. K concerning two French nationals who had failed to obtain their entry visa to Algeria, as well as terrorist suspects in France, a ex-member of the FIS arrested in Italy and stolen vehicles wanted by Interpol ”, according to Ennahar.
Seven years in prison
The information transmitted also covered “vehicle traffic [de et vers la France], Algerian counterfeiters specializing in false passports and visas, networks of theft of medical equipment in France to bring them back to Algeria, money laundering cases and the identity of certain visa applicants ”, details the daily Echourrouk. The same newspaper specifies that Z. A obtained this information from the police and customs officers “by promising them to speed up their visa procedures”. Several people are being prosecuted in this case judged by the criminal court of Dar El-Beida in the eastern suburbs of Algiers. The accused Z. A denied the facts with which he is accused, referring to “friendly discussions” with K. B in his official accommodation at the embassy. “We couldn’t even download everything from your phone because there was so much data,” the judge retorted. He was sentenced on Wednesday November 11 to seven years in prison as well as his friend the airport policeman. A Customs executive was sentenced to three years, while an airport intern was sentenced to 18 years. Two former police officers were acquitted.
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