PARIS – A French judge has ordered two former Algerian officials to stand trial on charges of torture stemming from Algeria’s anti-terrorism efforts during the deadly insurgency there in the 1990s.
The unusual cross-border court case was announced Tuesday by the International Human Rights Federation and the League of Human Rights, which filed a lawsuit in 2003 against the two men.
The indictment names the Algerian brothers Hocine and Abdelkader Mohamed, who live in southern France. The rights groups say they were local officials who belonged to a militia and are accused of torture and forced disappearances.
French law allows for trials for grave international crimes committed outside France.
Algeria reached a 2005 reconciliation accord meant to turn the page on a decade of violence that left at least 200,000 people dead.