He is the only general in the Algerian army, out of a good fifty, to be in prison not for corruption or financial embezzlement. But for purely political reasons. Moreover, he is not a resident of the military prison of Blida. There is the civil prison of Koléa.
Doctor of political science, armed with military and university diplomas, this child from the city of Oum-El-Bouaghi who gave so much for the independence of Algeria, left the military institution in 2015 at the age of 61 years old. He had just complied with the new statutes of the army which he had just proposed and had validated by the military high command. Statutes, today, violated by Generals Chengriha, Benali Benali and all this old guard of septuagenarians and octogenarians who refuse to return home to sink a peaceful retirement.
His military career, Ali Ghediri began in the mid-1970s with training at the Cherchell Combined Arms Military Academy, after obtaining his baccalaureate. He was then sent to the Naval Academy of Saint Petersburg, where he studied marine mechanical engineering. Before serving in the naval forces from 1983, he spent time at the Moscow Military Academy and another at the Damascus Staff Academy.
But most of his military career, Ali Ghediri spent in the offices of the Ministry of National Defense in Tagarins, on the heights of Algiers where he had to head the human resources department better known by the abbreviation of DPJM (Directorate of Personnel and Military Justice)
Very discreet, Major-General Ali Ghedir was unknown to public opinion until the day he displayed his scientific and political baggage by calling out, in an open letter in the daily El Watan, (November 22, 2018) its elders who refuse to retire when they no longer have anything to contribute to the country and its army. A letter that hurt many generals including the former strongman under Bouteflika, Lieutenant General Ahmed Gaïd Salah, then Chief of Staff and Deputy Minister of National Defense.
He took it badly, he did it again with an interview in the same newspaper and ended up being called to order and subjecting himself to the obligation of reserve like any retired officer. He then announced his presidential candidacy scheduled for April 2019 by challenging the soldiers in the shadows while declaring that he “knew them well and was not afraid of them. Without a militant past and without partisan affiliation, the young retired general relies on two strong personalities notoriously known for their moral probity and intellectual integrity.
The lawyer Zoubida Assoul, originally from the Aurès and affectionately nicknamed Kahina in homage to her courage and the fierce political fight she leads on all fronts, will be and continues to be one of her strongest supporters. The second personality is another lawyer experienced in political struggles and a founding member of the Algerian League for the Defense of Human Rights (now dissolved by Tebboune) and a founding member of the Rassemblement pour la Culture et la Démocratie, which he ended by leaving like almost all of his peers who refused the double game indulged in by their companion Said Saadi who occupied the post of Secretary General of this political formation.
Long before the cancellation of the April 18, 2019 election was announced, Ali Ghediri withdrew his candidacy and joined the people of “Hirak” in the street. In the eyes of the military, “this felon” will never suit them and it will be impossible for them to deal with this stubborn “chaoui” (says the Berbers of the Aurès).
At the announcement of a new ballot for July 4, Ali Ghediri is the first to stand as a candidate while calling for the resignation of interim President Abdelkader Bensalah (who died on September 22, 2021) and Prime Minister Noureddine Bedoui (he is sentenced to 10 years in prison since August 23, 2022 for corruption). Their presence at the head of state was a violation of the constitution which limits the interim period to 45 days.
General Ahmed Gaïd Salah, the strongman of the regime who dismissed Bouteflika on April 2, 2019 before bringing his colt Abdelmadjid Tebboune to the supreme office under the terms of a rigged election, ordered that Ali Ghediri be arrested.
But, in Algeria, we play justice with a simple phone call. If the military court of Blida and the gendarmerie brigade of Bab-Jedid (a security body which comes under the Ministry of National Defence) did not find him any offense or any grievance, the civil court of dar-El-Beïda accuses of “participation in peacetime in an enterprise aimed at weakening the morale of the People’s National Army (ANP)” through an interview given to the daily El-Watan on December 25, 2018. Another charge will be added to him.
Yet there is nothing in this interview that can support a trumped up accusation. No material evidence of the charges against him was presented in the file.
At the start of the case, another accusation was made to push it further. “High treason, disclosure of state secrets and documents to foreign powers”. For lack of evidence, the indictment chamber abandons this grotesque accusation.
In September 2021, he was sentenced to 4 years in prison, while the prosecution had requested 7 years. A few days before his release (June 13) his appeal trial begins. While many observers naively expected a reduction in sentence, without interest since the accused had served his entire sentence, it was rather the opposite that happened. A stone’s throw from the presidential election of 2024, it was necessary to prevent the candidacy of this retired soldier who won the sympathy of the Algerian people for all the injustice inflicted on him by a power strongly rejected by the vox populi.
And here we go for two more years of deprivation of liberty for a man who served the Algerian army for forty years and three of whose sons continue to serve this same army as senior officers. This while recalling that his father had served in the ranks of the National Liberation Army for the reconquest of the independence of Algeria.
Thus, one could say without being mistaken that the electoral fraud of the next presidential election of December 2024 started at the Algiers Court of Appeal in the early hours of the day of May 17, 2023. not complain about the resolutions of international bodies when it reminds the Algerian leaders to respect individual freedoms and especially the freedom of the press and of opinion. Ali Ghediri was convicted for expressing an opinion in an Algerian newspaper.
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