Algeria : General Ali Ghediri's imprisonment extended by two years
He is the political prisoner who most frightens the ruling power and who is least talked about. While he is about to finish serving his 4-year prison sentence pronounced against him in September 2021, the Algiers Court of Appeal has just pronounced a 6-year prison sentence against him
He is the only general in the Algerian army, out of fifty or so, who is in prison not for corruption or financial malpractice, but for purely political reasons. Moreover, he does not reside in the military prison of Blida. He is in the civilian prison of Koléa.
Grotesquely charged with "participation in peacetime in an enterprise aimed at undermining the morale of the National People's Army (ANP) Ali Ghediri, a candidate in the aborted presidential elections of April 2019, was sentenced in the first instance by the Dar-El-Beïda court (Algiers) in September 2021 to 4 years in prison. This sentence has just been increased by two more years as he was about to leave prison on 13 June, having served his full sentence.
A doctor in political science, with military and university degrees, this son of the town of Oum-El-Bouaghi, who gave so much for Algerian independence, left the military institution in 2015 at the age of 61. He had just complied with the new army statutes proposed and validated by the military high command. Statutes, today, violated by Generals Chengriha, Benali Benali and the entire old guard of septuagenarians and octogenarians who refuse to return home to enjoy a peaceful retirement.
Ali Ghediri began his military career in the mid-1970s with an apprenticeship at the inter-army military academy in Cherchell, after graduating from high school. He was then sent to the St. Petersburg Naval Academy, where he trained in naval mechanical engineering. Before serving in the naval forces from 1983, he spent time at the Military Academy in Moscow and at the General Staff Academy in Damascus. However, Ali Ghediri spent most of his military career in the offices of the Ministry of National Defence in Tagarins, on the heights of Algiers, where he was in charge of the Directorate of Human Resources, better known by the acronym DPJM (Directorate of Personnel and Military Justice).
Very discreet, Major General Ali Ghedir was unknown to public opinion until the day he displayed his scientific and political baggage by calling out, in an open letter in the daily El Watan, (22 November 2018) to his seniors who refuse to retire as long as they have nothing more to contribute to the country and its army. A letter that wounded many generals, including Bouteflika's former strongman, Lieutenant General Ahmed Gaïd Salah, then chief of staff and deputy minister of national defence.
He did not like it, repeated the same interview in the same newspaper and ended up being called to order and forced to remain in reserve like any other retired officer. He then announced his candidacy for the presidential elections scheduled for April 2019, defying the military in the shadows while declaring that he knew them "well and was not afraid of them". With no militant past and no party affiliation, the young retired general is supported by two strong personalities known for their moral probity and intellectual integrity. The lawyer Zoubida Assoul, originally from the Aurès and affectionately nicknamed Kahina in tribute to her courage and fierce political struggle on all fronts, will be and remains one of his strongest supporters. The second personality is another lawyer, a veteran of political struggles and a founding member of the Algerian League for the Defence of Human Rights (now dissolved by Tebboune) and a founding member of the Rally for Culture and Democracy, which he finally left like almost all his colleagues who refused to play the double game of his colleague Saïd Saadi, who was the Secretary General of this political grouping.
Long before the announcement of the cancellation of the elections of 18 April 2019, Ali Ghediri withdrew his candidacy and joined the "Hirak" people in the street. In the eyes of the military, "this delinquent" will never do their business and it will be impossible for them to deal with this obstinate "Chaoui" (Berbers of the Aurès).
When new elections were announced for 4 July, Ali Ghediri was the first to put himself forward as a candidate while calling for the resignation of interim President Abdelkader Bensalah (who died on 22 September 2021) and Prime Minister Noureddine Bedoui (sentenced to 10 years in prison on 23 August 2022 for corruption). Their presence at the head of state constituted a violation of the constitution, which limits the interim period to 45 days.
General Ahmed Gaïd Salah, the regime strongman who deposed Bouteflika on 2 April 2019 before bringing his protégé Abdelmadjid Tebboune to the supreme magistracy after a rigged election, ordered the arrest of Ali Ghediri.
Unfounded accusations that tarnish the image of the Algerian army
His arrest was most scandalous. Arrested at his home on 12 June 2019 at around 10 p.m., he was taken to the national gendarmerie barracks in Bab-Jedid, not far from the headquarters of the Ministry of National Defence. After a four-hour hearing, he was released. The next day, he was arrested again and taken to the military court in Blida. Without any real charges, he was released after a few hours. But it was only a postponement. The same day, he was arrested and brought before the prosecutor's office of the Dar-El-Beïda court, which had no territorial jurisdiction to try him. But, in Algeria, justice is played with by a simple phone call. While the military court in Blida and the Bab-Jedid gendarmerie brigade (a security force under the Ministry of National Defence) found no crime or offence against him, the civil court in Dar-El-Beïda accused him of "participation in peacetime in an enterprise aimed at undermining the morale of the National People's Army (ANP)" in an interview given to the daily El-Watan on 25 December 2018. To this accusation will be added another. However, there is nothing in this interview to corroborate a fabricated accusation. No material evidence of the facts of which he is accused has been presented in the case file.
At the beginning of the case, another accusation was made to further weaken him. "High treason, disclosure of state secrets and documents to foreign powers". For lack of evidence, the indictment chamber dropped this grotesque charge.
In September 2021, he was sentenced to four years in prison, while the prosecution had asked for seven years. A few days before his release (13 June), he began his appeal. Although many observers naively expected a reduced sentence, which was of no interest since the defendant had served his entire sentence, the opposite was the case. With the 2024 presidential elections just around the corner, it was necessary to prevent the candidacy of this retired military officer, who has won the sympathy of the Algerian people for all the injustices he has suffered at the hands of a power strongly rejected by the vox populi.
And here goes two more years of deprivation of liberty for a man who served the Algerian army for some forty years and whose three sons are still serving this same army as senior officers. All this while remembering that his father had served in the ranks of the National Liberation Army for the reconquest of Algeria's independence.
It could therefore be safely said that the electoral fraud for the next presidential elections in December 2024 began at the Algiers Court of Appeal in the early hours of 17 May 2023. Let us not complain about the resolutions of international bodies when they remind Algerian leaders to respect individual freedoms and especially freedom of the press and freedom of opinion. Ali Ghediri was sentenced for having expressed an opinion in an Algerian newspaper.