Silence! They are killing

It all began with the death of a young man, Haïthem Djebbari, as a result of ill-treatment in a police station. A few days later, a young shepherd from the Souk-Ahrass region, Bilel Ben Ouareth, was beaten to death by members of the gendarmerie. The day before, another young man was evacuated from the office of the examining magistrate of the Mostaganem court to die in a hospital in the city after being beaten on the head, according to a statement by the prosecutor of the same court.

These are no longer police errors, but a new policy of the Algerian security services, which no longer hesitate to kill with impunity ordinary citizens who have committed no offence or crime.

The young Haïthem, from Tébessa, was arrested by the police for having intervened when he saw a policeman mistreating his mother on her way home. The police broke into the Djebbari home to carry out a search, which ended with a negative result, just like a month and a half earlier. 

Dissatisfied with the negative result, the police assaulted the mother and her 17-year-old son Hichem. It was then that Haïthem arrived to do some shopping at the local mini-market. We know what happened next. He was shot three times with an electric Tazer, taken to the police station, tortured and evacuated to the hospital in Annaba, 250 km from Tébessa, where he died as a result of the ill-treatment. 

The Algerian press, tamed by the ruling regime, did not utter a word about this tragic event. The prosecutor of the Tébessa court reacted three days later, in order to calm the angry population, by issuing a press release announcing the opening of an investigation and the autopsy of the body of the deceased. To date, the investigation has been slow to get underway and no order has been given to exhume the body for an autopsy. As for the policemen responsible for this despicable crime, they are still on duty and have not been disturbed in the slightest. Not even the wilaya's security chief (the prefect of police) has been affected by the latest move by the Algerian police.

In Souk Ahrass, a town bordering Tunisia, Bilel Ben Ouareth, a young shepherd with no connection to politics or social media, was arrested by members of the gendarmerie for a hitherto unknown reason. He was beaten to death and the gendarmes have not yet been brought to account.

Two days earlier, the young Abdelmalek Sofiane was arrested by members of the BRI (Investigation Brigade) for expressing on social media his discontent at having been illegally dispossessed of his small business premises at the bus station in the town of Chréa, in the wilaya of Tébessa. 

He escaped the torture session, but was imprisoned in the civil prison on a number of charges. He was accused of "membership of a terrorist organisation, attacking the head of state and defamation of the director of the Chréa bus station". Serious charges punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

In the west of the country, an unidentified young man was murdered in the office of the examining magistrate of the Mostaganem court, without his motive being known. On the evening of 1 August, reports circulated on social media that shots had been fired at the examining magistrate who was hearing a former court clerk. The judge was reported to have shot himself.

A few hours later, the Mostaganem court prosecutor's office reported that "the events took place on Sunday, 30 July, at around 3pm. The judge was trying a defendant named D. Lakhdar, a former clerk of the same court, on charges of abuse of office and usurpation of functions. The accused pulled out a pistol and fired at the judge, wounding him in the stomach. 

The intervention of the court clerk and a gendarme allowed the assailant to be disarmed and neutralised. The fact that a defendant is interrogated by an examining magistrate while armed is a little far-fetched. The prosecutor's office itself quickly denied it when it was announced that the "assailant" was dead.

On Tuesday 2 August there was a new twist in the case. In a press release dated 1 August, the prosecutor announced "the death of the main accused in the attempted murder of the examining magistrate on Tuesday 1ᵉʳ August. His remains have undergone an autopsy.

Initial findings of the autopsy report show that death was caused by blunt trauma to the head and chest, resulting in internal bleeding, the Mostaganem prosecutor said in his statement.

According to the results of the autopsy and the first conclusions of the preliminary investigation, suicide or death by shooting has been ruled out". This clearly means that the young man had been beaten in the office of the examining magistrate. An office in which the deceased accused was surrounded by the examining magistrate, the clerk and a gendarme. It does not take a genius to guess what happened next. If someone was in possession of a weapon, it could only be the gendarme. 

Sources close to the case indicate that the gendarme drew his gun to intimidate the accused. The gun discharged unintentionally and the bullet lodged in the abdomen of the examining magistrate. The hypothesis that the accused fired at the judge is very poorly mounted and had only one objective, to cover up for the gendarme who fired the shot.

The investigation promised by the prosecution will never be opened, as in previous cases. In Algeria, people kill and everyone is silent. Starting with the press.