a Niger court sentenced an ethnic Tuareg...

a Niger court sentenced an ethnic Tuareg ex-rebel leader to death in absentia for ordering the assassination of a politician in 2004, court sources said. Rhissa Ag Boula, former head of the radical FLAA rebel movement during a 1991-95 rebellion and a former tourism minister of the Niger government, was sentenced in his absence. Moutari Abdou, a prosecutor at the Niamey court, told reporters that Ag Boula admitted ordering the killing of a local party official, Adam Amangue, in January 2004. Ag Boula is currently in France, having fled Niger while on bail in 2005. Three people have already been jailed for carrying out the murder. Abdou said Ag Boula could appeal the sentence if he returned to Niger, and that the authorities might try to have him extradited. Death sentences in Niger are often commuted to life in prison.