ALGERIA: 12 PEOPLE SENTENCED TO DEATH FOR TERRORISM

the Algiers Criminal Court has handed down death sentences to 12 people and condemned two others to life imprisonment over their involvement in a bomb explosion that claimed the lives of a Frenchman and his driver back in 2008. They were accused “forming an armed terrorist group and premeditated voluntary homicide.”
The defendants given the death penalty are all members of the Katibat el-Arkam network, which is the most dreadful splinter group of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). They are at large and Algerian judicial officials tried them in absentia.
The two present in the court, identified as Khaled Asalah and Brahim Brahim, admitted being AQIM members and taking part in several terrorist attacks.
Engineer Pierre Nowacki of the French enterprise BTP Razel and his Algerian driver were killed on June 9, 2008, when a bomb explosion ripped through their vehicle as it was travelling on a road in the town of Beni Amrane, located some 80 kilometers (49 miles) east of the capital, Algiers. Seven people sustained injuries minutes later when a second blast struck the town.