heard by the anti-terrorism prosecutor's office in Algiers, the writer was placed under arrest warrant, announces his lawyer

“Whatever the injuries invoked and the sensitivities offended, they are inseparable from the very idea of ​​freedom, dearly won in Algeria,” said François Zimeray in a press release.

The Franco-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal, arrested in Algeria, was questioned by the anti-terrorist prosecution in Algiers. He was also placed under a committal warrant, his lawyer François Zimeray announced Tuesday, November 26 in a press release sent to AFP.

Algerian justice made this decision “under article 87 bis of the Algerian Penal Code which punishes all attacks on state security”writes François Zimeray. “The deprivation of liberty of an 80-year-old writer [Boualem Sansal a 75 ans] because of his writings is a serious act”observes the lawyer.

“Whatever the wounds invoked and the sensitivities offended, they are inseparable from the very idea of ​​freedom, dearly won in Algeria. There is a manifest disproportion here, the scope of which the authors have probably not measured”he added again. For the lawyer, “if there must be an investigation, this in no way justifies the extension of the detention of Boualem Sansal”.

Announced by several French media on Thursday, the arrest of the author of 2084: the end of the world was confirmed by the Algerian government agency APS. According to those close to him, the novelist was arrested when he got off the plane on November 16 at Algiers airport, coming from France.

Questioned on the subject Tuesday morning on franceinfo, the Minister of the Interior declared “trust the President of the Republic to deploy all the energy he can muster to obtain immediate release” from Boualem Sansal. “Efficiency requires discretion”recalled Bruno Retailleau. The arrest of Boualem Sansal takes place in a particularly tense diplomatic context between Paris and Algiers.