Colonel Bennacer, former consul in Alicante, challenges General Chengriha and demands his presence for a confrontation
On Sunday 11 February, at the military court in Blida, Colonel Boualem Bennacer, alias Hamza, an officer in the General Directorate of Documentation and External Security and former consul in Alicante (Spain), was accused of conspiring against the adviser to the President of the Republic, Boualem Boualem Boualem, currently director of the Presidential Cabinet.
Boualem Bennacer's career
Boualem Bennacer is a handsome man with a slender figure. Educated at leading European universities, he is the son of the late Major General Larbi Bennacer, former director of military justice at the Ministry of National Defence. He was assassinated on 1 September 2005 in Aïn-Defla (140 km southwest of Algiers) by members of the death squad commanded by General Abdelkader Aït-Ourabia, alias Hassan, for protesting against the Charter of Civil Concord, which absolves the criminals of the bloody decade of their crimes.
Colonel Boualem Bennacer, whose great competence and moral integrity are recognised by his peers and officials, was appointed consul in Alicante in September 2019 as part of the militarisation of the Algerian diplomatic corps. Previously, he was posted to the Algerian consulate in Bobigny as head of the security office.
In March 2021, he was relieved of his duties and posted to the Hammaguir advanced combat centre in the Bechar region in the south-west of the country, on the Algerian-Moroccan border. It was a post that did not fit his profile or his training. Recalcitrant officers and NCOs from the secret services were posted there as a disciplinary measure.
Some time after his posting to this area, where living conditions were inhuman to say the least, he was arrested.
A case was fabricated against him, accusing him of conspiring against high-ranking officials close to the President of the Republic. An accusation that was turned against its authors on the opening day of the trial, Sunday 11 February.
In reality, during his stay in Alicante, which continued even afterwards, leaks of supposed secret information were organised by a DGDSE network manipulated from Algiers by Hocine Boulahia and Souahi Zerguine alias Mouadh, acting under the direction of General Djebbar, head of Algerian foreign security. The leaks were intended for a London-based youtuber known as the 'London rat', currently on the run in Europe. Colonel Bennaceur, alias Hamza, who was invited to join the network, refused to sign a false testimony against the son of Boualem Boualem Boualem, advisor to the President of the Republic.
Initially, Colonel Bennaceur was to attend the trial of the "conspirators" as a witness. But the scriptwriters of the trial ended up making him take the fall for the accused by finding acolytes who had nothing to do with his case. This is what he forcefully denounced at the opening of the trial on Sunday 11 February. He bravely used a tone of voice unusual in this kind of military environment. According to the witnesses present, the former consul in Alicante quickly dismantled the prosecution's hypothesis by naming the real conspirators: General Sid Ali Zmerli, former central director of army security and his brother Colonel Omar, Colonels Mouadh and Hocine Boulahia, Mrs Assia Melhani, a member of the PCA (Assimilated Civilian Personnel), and General Djebbar Mehenna, all of them "protégés of General Chengriha", he insisted.
Dismayed, the prosecutor, Colonel Farid Boukhari, who had himself been in prison in the early 2020s, demoted and then rehabilitated, tried in vain to calm him down by urging him to use a measured tone. He told him not to mention the names of these officers, who were not in the file. To get him off the subject, he asked him to retract his previous statements and to limit himself to mentioning Colonel Amirat Tarek, alias Ramel, former head of the security office of the Algerian embassy in Paris, who has been incarcerated in a military prison for several months after having been rehabilitated once and acquitted of the charge of intelligence with a foreign power.
Colonel Boualem Bennacer refused to accept, pointing out that Hocine Boulahia, a protégé of General Chengriha, was co-responsible for the clan of conspirators. He insisted on the presence of General Saïd Chengriha, Chief of Staff of the Algerian army, in order for him to recuse him by proving that he was the protector of the clan of conspirators.
Faced with the accused's obstinacy, the presiding judge quickly adjourned the court.
The next day, Monday 12 February, according to generally well-informed sources, the trio of Hocine Boulahia, Assia Melhani and Souahi Zerguine met in the latter's office for more than three hours. On the agenda was the review of the scenario of Colonel Bennacer's trial. At the end of the meeting, it was also decided that Hocine Boulahia and Assia Melhani would not appear at the hearing on Tuesday 13 February.
In fact, when the hearing opened at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, the two acolytes were absent, despite Colonel Boualem Bennacer's insistence. He also demanded the presence of General Chengriha. By being aggressive and insistent, the accused once again forced the court to adjourn the session without achieving its objectives. As a result, the court showed its limitations, in the eyes of the conspirators behind the trial. As a result, it is expected that the composition of the court will be changed by convening new judges. To be continued.