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Algeria sentences 12 to death over 2008 bomb attack

A car, which was the target of an attack killing an engineer working on a renovation project for French enterprise BTP Razel, is seen under a plastic cover in the town of Beni Amrane, Algeria, on June 9, 2008. (© AP)

A court in Algeria has handed down death sentences to 12 people and condemned two others to life imprisonment over their involvement in a bomb explosion that claimed the lives of a Frenchman and his driver back in 2008.

On Wednesday, the Algiers Criminal Court found the accused “forming an armed terrorist group and premeditated voluntary homicide.”

The defendants given the death penalty are all members of the Katibat el-Arkam network, which is the most dreadful splinter group of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). They are at large and Algerian judicial officials tried them in absentia.

The two present in the court, identified as Khaled Asalah and Brahim Brahim, admitted being AQIM members and taking part in several terrorist attacks.

Engineer Pierre Nowacki of the French enterprise BTP Razel and his Algerian driver were killed on June 9, 2008, when a bomb explosion ripped through their vehicle as it was travelling on a road in the town of Beni Amrane, located some 80 kilometers (49 miles) east of the capital, Algiers.

Seven people sustained injuries minutes later when a second blast struck the town.

The French national had been supervising repair work on a railway tunnel in the area.

MP/NN/GHN


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