Algeria court sentences prominent journalist El Kadi to three years in prison

Prominent journalist, Ihsane El Kadi, was sentenced to three years in prison by an Algerian court, on Sunday (April 2) for “foreign financing of his business”, reported AFP. The case has been criticised by rights groups for months now, as many have urged Algeria to lift “unacceptable” restrictions on his media outlets.

El Kadi who runs the Maghreb Emergent news website and Radio M is said to be one of the last independent media bosses in the North African country. This comes after he was handed a five-year sentence, however, two years of which are suspended. During the public hearing, the court in Algiers also sentenced the dissolution of the company Interface Medias and ordered the confiscation of its assets, reported AFP.

The company in question is said to be the publisher behind El Kadi’s two outlets was also fined $73,500 while El Kadi was also fined some thousands of dollars. Meanwhile, the journalist’s lawyer, Abdelghani Badi, told AFP that his team had boycotted the session on Sunday over the “absence of just trial conditions” and will appeal the sentence.

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El Kadi was remanded in December following accusations of “receiving sums of money and privileges from people and organisations inside the country and abroad in exchange for carrying out activities that could harm state security”. Notably, the journalist was sentenced in June to six months in prison but remained free as no warrant was issued for his arrest at the time.

Earlier this year, Amnesty International’s Amna Guellali, said that the accusations against the journalist were “trumped-up state security related offences” and called his detention “unjustified”. She added that this is “yet another example of their ruthless campaign to silence voices of dissent through arbitrary detention and the closure of media outlets.”

Additionally, 16 international media figures including Nobel Peace Prize winner and Russian journalist Dmitri Muratov called for El Kadi's release, reported AFP. Algeria ranks 134th out of 180 countries on Paris-based media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF)’s 2022 World Press Freedom Index.

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