FIS leader facing terrorism charges

The Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) leader known in the media as BH will stand trial before the Judicial Council of Algiers on Monday. He is facing charges of forming and running an armed gang, taking part in an act of rebellion with the intent to seize weapons and ammunition by attacking the Algiers Naval Forces base, and premeditated murder. The FIS leader was arrested at the Houari Boumediene Airport in Algiers after filing a request to benefit from the Charter for Peace and National Reconciliation proposed by Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika in 2000. The defendant has been tried in Italy and was handed an eight-year prison sentence by a Neapolitan court for the crime of being a member in an armed criminal group with terrorism-related aims. The sentence was upheld two years into his prison term. He was arrested for questioning over providing terrorist groups with weapons for operations in Algeria and elsewhere, and aiding the illegal entry for members of terrorist organisations into Italy to transfer instructions to terrorist groups in other European countries. The FIS man had left Algeria for Italy, settling in Milan, after he was arrested and released in the early 1990s. He worked with the SOS drug rehabilitation organisation until he was contacted by SK (also known as Abou Younes) who tasked him with representing FIS abroad by opening a bureau in Italy and handing out leaflets inciting young men of the Algerian community to commit violence.