ALGIERS, Oct 25, 2012 (AFP)
ALGIERS, Oct 25, 2012 (AFP)
An Algerian court has sentenced to death eight men for murdering a businessman, the APS agency reported on Thursday, adding that some of them had confessed to being members of Al-Qaeda.
The trial lasted only three days, involving 14 defendants, six of whom claimed affiliation with Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the news agency said.
The eight sentenced to death for pre-meditated murder were also charged with kidnapping for ransom, arms trafficking, money laundering, conspiracy and murder in 2010 of Hend Slimana in a village in the region.
The court of Tizi Ouzou, 100 kilometres (62 miles) east of Algiers, delivered the verdict overnight Wednesday after hearing 41 victims and 11 witnesses, media reports said.
Of the eight sentenced to death, seven were present in the court and one is on the run. The others were given harsh terms of up to 20 years in prison.
More than 70 kidnappings have been recorded since 2005 in the mountainous Kabylie region of eastern Algeria where the body of a 19-year-old son of a businessman kidnapped earlier this month was found on Wednesday, newspaper reports said Thursday.
