Algeria agrees to pardon writer Boualem Sansal, says presidency

Sansal had been detained while visiting Algeria in November last year and sentenced in March

Boualem Sansal had been charged under Algeria’s anti-terrorism laws and convicted of 'undermining national unity'. AFP

Algeria's President Abdelmadjid Tebboune has decided to pardon French-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal, who was sentenced to five years in prison in March, his office said on Wednesday.

Sansal, 81, who has cancer, had been living in France but was detained while visiting Algeria in November for statements to a French media outlet in which he endorsed Morocco's position that part of its territory was seized during French colonial rule and annexed to Algeria.

He was charged under Algeria’s anti-terrorism laws and convicted of “undermining national unity”.

In July, an Algerian court upheld a five-year prison sentence imposed on Sansal. France has urged Algeria to show clemency.

The Algerian presidency said in a statement that Mr Tebboune received a request for Sansal's pardon from German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Monday.

Mr Tebboune “responded positively to this request … for humanitarian reasons,” the presidency said.

It added that the German state would cover the costs of transporting and treating Sansal.

Mr Steinmeier's office said on Monday that he had asked President Tebboune to pardon Sansal as “a humanitarian gesture”.

“Given Sansal's advanced age and fragile health condition”, Mr Steinmeier also “offered Sansal's relocation to Germany and subsequent medical care in our country”.

A pardon for Sansal “would be an expression of humanitarian spirit and political foresight”, Mr Steinmeier said.

“It would reflect my long-standing personal relationship with President Tebboune and the good relations between our countries.”

The writer's conviction and sentencing exacerbated tensions between Algeria and France, whose relations have reached an all-time low since French President Emmanuel Macron last year angered Algiers by recognising Morocco's sovereignty over the Sahara region.

They slumped again after it emerged that Algeria had repeatedly refused to take back one of its citizens living illegally in France, who in February was arrested over a fatal stabbing in the eastern French city of Mulhouse.

France, meanwhile, ordered investigations into several Algerian influencers suspected of spreading hate speech online.

In April, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot succeeded in smoothing matters during a state visit, only for the situation to sour again after Algeria expelled 12 French officials from the embassy in Algiers in protest over the arrest of three Algerians in France accused of orchestrating the kidnapping of a government critic.

French diplomats have said such a move was unfair because the arrests were linked to a judicial, not a political, decision.