The Court of Bab Al-Wadi in the Algerian capital postponed the journalist “Adlan Malah” ‘s case to a session on December 25th after a one-day trial, which witnessed the withdrawal of the defence of more than 200 lawyers due to their protest over the judge's conduct of the hearing. According to the lawyers, there were no fair trial conditions in this case.
The prosecutor demanded a three-year prison sentence against journalist “Adlan Malah”, who was charged with unlicensed gatherings, civil disobedience and insulting a regular body before the trial judge’s referral of the file to the hearing. The verdict will be issued at the 25th session of the current month.
“Adlan Malah” ‘s lawyers, who are the most famous and senior lawyers in Algeria, denounced the conduct of the trial before deciding to withdraw collectively because of what they considered as an attempt by the trial body to direct the case in a certain direction. In fact, they consider his case as a political trial. Thus, “Adlan Malah” did not benefit from his right to defence, as all his lawyers withdrew from the session, stressing that the trial was political rather than legal.
For her part, the journalist’s wife announced that he has entered in a hunger strike, in protest against his imprisonment and the circumstances of his trial, stressing that her husband prefers death rather than the violation of the law.
On the other hand, the journalist “Abdel-Karim Zeghalch” benefited from his temporary release after spending more than a month and a half in prison after being charged with libel and then charged with insulting a regular body. Moreover, the journalist, the owner of the “Sarbakan radio station”, had a trial in “Al-Ziadia” court (400 kilometres east of the capital) without the prosecutor's appeal to the judge's decision to release him temporarily.
#fair_trial_conditions #Algeria #journalist #Adlan_Malah
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