Al-Qaida head sentenced to death in Algeria

The Algiers criminal court handed down these death sentences notably on the head of AQIM's communications unit in Algeria, Salah Gacemi Salah, and on the “emir” of the El Arkam section of AQIM, Rabah Ghiatou.

The El Arkam section of the group was blamed for a bomb attack on a police post in the Dar El Beida region of Algiers in April 2007 which killed 11 people and left more than 100 wounded.

Few of those convicted were in court, but four defendants who were on trial were given life imprisonment sentences, while another got a four-year jail term and two others were acquitted.

All 56 suspects were charged with forming a terrorist group, belonging to an armed terrorist group, voluntary premeditated homicide and the use of explosives.

Each of those who appeared in court denied the charges and went back on the testimony that they had given to the security forces and the examining magistrate before the trial.

Earlier, they had acknowledged belonging to a section in the Thenia region 50 kilometres (30 miles) east of Algiers of the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, which was transformed late in 2007 into AQIM and declared its allegiance to Osama Bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network.

Abdelmalek Droukdel, alias Abou Moussaab Abdelouadoud, 38, is still on the run after going underground in the 1990s. He has evaded arrest several times and already faces previous death sentences for attacks by AQIM.

The death penalty has not been carried out in Algeria for more than 15 years, under a moratorium that was passed in 1993.

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