A criminal tribunal in Algiers sentenced 15 Islamic...

A criminal tribunal in Algiers sentenced 15 Islamic extremists to death, 14 of them in absentia, Le Soir d'Algerie reported. The 15 were part of an armed group held responsible for chronic violence in Algiers' old Casbah district between 1996 and 2000, the paper said. The death penalty is rarely carried out in Algeria.
The last executions took place in 1993 after the convictions of seven Islamic extremists over a deadly bombing at Algiers' airport in 1992, the first year of Algeria's brutal civil war.