Algeria has still not returned the body of one of those killed in the Saidia incident
Almost a month after the murder of two French-Moroccan nationals, Bilal Kissi and Abdelali Mchiouer, by the Algerian army off the coast of Saidia, Mchiouer's relatives have still not received his body. In this regard, the family's lawyers have denounced the political blockade by Algiers, which broke off diplomatic relations with Morocco in August 2021 after multiple disputes.
Through their legal representatives, the family of Abdelali Mchiouer announced that they had contacted the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions for an investigation. Furthermore, during a press conference earlier this week, the relatives expressed their dismay at the obstacles still preventing the repatriation of Mchiouer's remains.
Following the incident in the maritime border area near Saidia, Bilal Kissi's body was pushed by the sea currents to the Moroccan side of the border. Following his funeral, a complaint was filed in Paris for murder, attempted murder, hijacking of a boat and failure to assist a person in distress.
While administrative procedures were being initiated on both sides to return Abdelali's body, kept in the Tlemcen morgue, to Morocco, the family's lawyers assured that initially there were no objections to this repatriation, which would only require a consular pass from Morocco to allow the coffin to be transferred to the border crossing.
However, the long wait since then has revealed certain obstacles. "We cannot, in 2023, sit on the bodies of innocent holidaymakers killed with heavy weapons by soldiers," said Me Hakim Chergui, the lawyer representing the Abdelali family, along with two other lawyers, Me Ouadie Elhamamouchi from Paris and Me Ghizlane Mouhtaram from Casablanca, at this week's press conference, according to Yabiladi.
"As for the Mchiouer family and the return of Abdelali's body, still detained by the military authorities, the proceedings began on 8 September and continued until the 15th of the same month," the lawyer went on to explain. According to Chergui, the Moroccan consulate has done "everything necessary required by the Algerian authorities".
"For now, we have been waiting for more than a week for a response from the Algerian military authorities. We are in a situation that resembles a blockade, but that does not mean that the Algerian authorities refuse to return the remains. It is still too early to say", he added.
The lawyer regretted the "total absence of political will to resolve this conflict in the healthiest possible way". That is why the UN Special Rapporteur was contacted. "The time has come to intensify our struggle on the international stage. It is inconceivable to remain indifferent, in 2023, to the brutal disappearance of innocent holidaymakers, victims of the bullets of an army. We will open and activate all possible avenues of international law to ensure that justice is done," he assured.
During his meeting with the press, the lawyer also described the family's grief at this tragic loss, as well as the injustice of still not having been able to hold a dignified funeral for the deceased. Chergui also stated that the Algerian prosecutor's office no longer cooperates with the Moroccan consular authorities at the judicial level.
During the same press conference, Haj Mostafa Mchiouer, father of the deceased Abdelali, denied any false information about a ransom demand in exchange for the repatriation of the remains. "The family is not in contact with government agencies and we have not been presented with any financial request from Algeria regarding the return of the body," he stressed.
However, faced with the paralysis of administrative procedures in Algeria, Abdelali Mchiouer's relatives contacted the Algerian president, Abdelmadjid Tebboune. In a letter to which Yabiladi has had access, they ask to facilitate the repatriation of the remains of the deceased, in the name of human dignity. "This tragedy is appalling for us and our loved ones. The wave of emotion it generated is immense: we see no end. And if we see no end, Mr. President of the Republic, it is because more than three weeks after his death, we were not allowed to bury our son, who, it must be remembered, was neither a criminal nor an enemy of Algeria," the family wrote.
"Abdelali's body is still a prisoner of the bureaucrats' inertia. This situation should concern us all, as Algerians, as Moroccans and as Muslims," the family also stressed. "Beyond our convictions, our differences, our parentheses, the only consideration due to a dead person should be human. Simply human," they concluded.
On 29 August last, Bilal Kissi and Abdelali Mchiouer were shot dead by the Algerian coast guard after the two Franco-Moroccans had wandered into Moroccan and Algerian territorial waters during a jet ski excursion off the coast of Saidia. Ismaïl Sannabi, wounded during the shooting, is still in detention in Algeria.
