Switzerland intends to try Algerian general Khaled Nezzar

The virulence of the reaction is commensurate with the shock felt by Algiers: “This affair has reached the limits of the unacceptable and intolerable. The Algerian government is determined to draw all the consequences, including those that are far from desirable for the future of Algerian-Swiss relations,” thundered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on August 31 after a telephone conversation between the head of Algerian diplomacy, Ahmed Attaf, and his Swiss counterpart, Ignazio Cassis.

After twelve years of proceedings, Swiss justice announced on August 28 the indictment and referral to the Federal Criminal Court of Khaled Nezzar, former Minister of Defense and former strongman of the Algerian regime at the beginning of the 1990s, now 85 years old. The charges are “war crimes in the form of torture, inhuman treatment, arbitrary detentions and convictions as well as crimes against humanity in the form of murders which allegedly took place from January 1992 to January 1994”. This is the first time that an Algerian official has been prosecuted abroad.

In the name of the principle of universal jurisdiction, Swiss law authorizes the prosecution of certain serious breaches of international law, in particular violations of the Geneva Conventions. The Public Ministry of the Confederation (MPC) argues that Mr. Nezzar, “in his capacity as Minister of Defense and member of the High State Committee, placed trusted people in key positions and knowingly and deliberately created structures aimed at exterminating the Islamist opposition”. “There followed war crimes and widespread and systematic persecution of civilians accused of sympathizing with opponents,” explains the MPC.

“Torture and inhuman treatment”

The charges against the former Algerian general allegedly took place during the first years of the civil war which bloodied the country in the 1990s. The former strongman of the regime is being prosecuted in his capacity as former Minister of Defense , a position he held from 1991 to 1993, as well as a former member of the High State Committee, a collegiate body set up to replace former President Chadli Bendjedid (1979-1992), landed by the military .

Four days before the second round of legislative elections, in January 1992, the army seized power to block the way to the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), a radical Islamist party that came out on top in the first round. His supporters then took to the bush by the thousands. The conflict was beginning. It caused more than 100,000 deaths in the ten years that followed, described as the “black decade” in Algeria.

The MPC mentions eleven charges against Khaled Nezzar based on the testimonies of twenty-four people, including former FIS militants and defectors from the security forces. “The presumed victims suffered torture, with water or electric shocks, and other cruel, inhuman or humiliating treatment, as well as violations of their physical and mental integrity”, indicates the public prosecutor. “There are also suspicions of arbitrary detentions and convictions as well as extrajudicial executions. The prosecution says Nezzar knowingly and deliberately approved, coordinated or ordered these abuses. »

For Abdelouahab Boukezouha, one of the five plaintiffs, it is the culmination of twenty years of a personal fight against the former general: “It’s a feeling of satisfaction, because it’s been a long time, too long. I hope he will be condemned so that this can serve as a lesson to his friends, the other generals, who participated in the “dark decade”. » This former member of the FIS had been arrested in 1992, shortly after the interruption of the electoral process and the outlawing of the Islamist party.

He claims to have been tortured and then detained for more than a year, like thousands of other relatives of the movement in a camp in southern Algeria, on the former French nuclear test site of Ain Amguel. Mr. Boukezouha, who says he has not “never took up arms or did anything against Algerian laws”, managed to leave the country illegally in December 1993. “They wanted to eliminate me after my release. Two people released at the same time as me were murdered when we got out. »

In 2001, Abdelouahab Boukezouha had already filed a complaint against General Nezzar in Paris. But, in Algiers, her child is then kidnapped by armed men. The head of the kidnappers makes him understand on the phone that his son’s life depends on the progress of the procedure. The complaint will eventually be withdrawn. “This time, he’s not going to make it.” He will be condemned,” hopes the plaintiff.

“National tragedy”

Khaled Nezzar was first arrested in Geneva in 2011 following a complaint filed by the NGO Trial International, on behalf of two alleged victims. Questioned, the former general had been released on the condition of remaining at the disposal of justice. In 2017, the MPC closed the case, considering that no armed conflict had taken place in Algeria. “Without armed conflict, there are no war crimes; without war crimes, no prosecution”, summarized Trial International. The Federal Criminal Court canceled this decision a year later, relaunching the investigation. Until the final decision on August 28.

“During the almost twelve years of proceedings, the defendant’s state of health has deteriorated and it would be inconceivable for the victims that their right to obtain justice would now be denied to them”, explains Benoît Meystre, legal advisor at Trial International, before continuing: “The court must quickly shed light on the crimes committed in Algeria and the responsibility that Mr. Nezzar bears, if we want to avoid a denial of justice. »

The last hearing of the former Algerian minister dates back to February. He then challenged, once again, the charges against him. “The file does not establish that General Khaled Nezzar ordered or facilitated the abuses of which he is accused, nor even that he was informed of them or that he refrained from acting to prevent them”, denounce his lawyers, Caroline Schumacher and Magali Buser.

Algerian power takes refuge behind the expression of “national tragedy” since it is a question of evoking the 1990s. A period on which he does not dwell and which he especially forbids to question. Adopted by referendum in 2005, under the aegis of former President Abdelazkiz Bouteflika, a “charter for peace and reconciliation”, amnesty for armed Islamists, punishes with three to five years in prison “anyone who, by his statements, writings or any other act, uses or exploits the wounds of the national tragedy”. The targets are people likely to demand accountability from those in power as well as victims of Islamist terrorism.

Pacification without truth or justice

Some do not hide their bitterness, considering themselves relegated to the margins of the tragedy of the 1990s: “International NGOs have always wanted to listen to only one side of the story. The victims of the Islamists have never been on the “good side”. Some explained to us that we did not fit into their charter, that they only defended State victims and not other entities… We were of no interest to anyone. Apart from feminist circles, sensitive to the fate of women victims of rape, massacres and disappearances, explains Cherifa Kheddar, president of the Djazairouna association, which defends victims of terrorism.

On June 24, 1996, an Islamist commando assassinated his sister, a lawyer, and his brother, an entrepreneur, in his presence. “We too would have liked to take advantage of Swiss justice, which has given itself universal powers, but the majority of our victims did not survive. And our associations are neither supported nor financed abroad to lead these fights,” she concludes.

Since his arrival at the presidency in 1999, former President Bouteflika made the end of the civil war his priority. This pacification enterprise, without truth or justice, the conditions of which were imposed on the Algerians without debate, aimed to prevent badly healed wounds born resurface. The Swiss public prosecutor has just decided otherwise.