An Algerian court sentenced an 80 -year -old writer to five years in prison after having accused him of having undermined the country’s territorial integrity.
Boualem Sansal was arrested last year after having said in an interview with a French far -right media which, during the colonial era, France gave too many land to Algeria and too little for Morocco.
He also said that the disputed territory in Western Sahara was historically part of Morocco.
During his detention, the French-Algerian author spent time at the hospital for poor health.
His case sparked a wave of support from intellectuals and politicians, in particular the Nigerian author of the Nobel Wole Soyinka Prize and the French President Emmanuel Macron.
“The arbitrary detention of Boualem Sansal, in addition to his disturbing health situation, is one of the elements that must be settled before confidence [between our countries] Can be fully restored, “said Macron in February.
The writer finds himself at the center of an in -depth diplomatic row, according to his friends.
“He contacted a pawn in the troubled relationship between Paris and Algiers,” said a committee of his supporters in France recently.
Algeria was once a prized French colony and fought an obstinate war of independence which finally won its sovereignty in 1962.
Relations have long been tense between the two countries, but reached a new hollow last year, when France supported Morocco’s demand in Western Sahara, where Algeria supports the Polisario group which is fighting against the independence of the territory.
Algiers responded to this light by removing its ambassador to Paris.
Three years earlier, Algeria has broken diplomatic links with Morocco.
After Wednesday’s sea decision, Sansal’s lawyer pleaded for President Algeria Abdelmadjid Tebboune to show “humanity” to the writer.
Sansal is well known for his anti-Islamist opinions and is a frank critic of the Algerian government.
His detractors say that he is a darling of the extreme right that soothes their prejudices.
The French chief of the far right, Marine Le Pen, described Sansal as “fighter for freedom and a courageous opponent of Islamism”.
His age has already been reported at 75, but his Gallimard publishers say he is in fact 80 years old.
The best known works in Sansal include 2084 – a satire on religious radicalism which won the Grand Prix of the French Academy of La Francophonie a decade ago.
His next novel, Vivre, must be published in May and tells the story of a limited group of people who are chosen to colonize a new planet while the land is approaching apocalypse.
Additional reports by Marcus Erbe
