Opposition leader Karim Tabou was forcefully taken away on Wednesday, 11 September in early afternoon by unidentified plainclothes agents near his home in Algiers. His family said one of the men pledged he will be released within two hours. It turned out he is now officially incarcerated. Sources say the arresting agents are members of the intelligent agency tied to the military given that he was taken to a notorious base known as “Antar,” famous for its practice of torture back in the 1990s.
The arrest of Tabou is considered a kidnapping since the agents did not identify themselves and carried no arrest warrant signed by a prosecutor or a magistrate. Such practice was used in the 1990s by the dreadful DRS and Algerian security against anyone that had different political views, and apparently even people who had nothing to do with politics. Thousands of people in Algeria disappeared in similar circumstances in the dark decade of the 1990s, with the political police telling the victim’s family that they have nothing to worry and “he will be back in a couple of hours.”
Investigative media AlgeriePart reports that Karim Tabou has undergone a long interrogation in Antar which was divided into three parts and lasted almost 24 hours. He has been “severely” questioned about his travels abroad, particularly with regard to his talks with the media, in particular UK-based TV channel Al-Magharbia, alleged meetings with opposition figures in Paris and his relations with members of the anti-government Rachad Movement and its tops leaders Mourad Dhina and Larbi Zitout.
Moreover, AlgeriePart sayd Tabbou was also questioned about his “potential” contacts with Khaled Nezzar, the retired general who has fled to Spain to avoid arrest by the Algerian military. They were also probed him about potential relations with former officers of the DRS reputed to be close to now-jailed General Toufik, a sworn enemy of Ahmed Gaid Salah.
The arrest of Tabou was triggered by his speech in on 8 May in Kherrata during which he attacked violently military chief, Ahmed Gaid Salah, with statements considered by the military as “offensive and defamatory” and described as an attack on the morale of the troops.
After spending the night in the Antar center, Karim Tabbou was interrogated for the third and last time on Thursday before he was transferred to the office of the Prosecutor of the Republic near the court of Kolea. The latter decided to place him under a detention warrant and to imprison him in Kolea prison.
The kidnapping is considered by opponents as a provocation against the protest movement. Since the start of the Hirak movement, Tabou has emerged as one of the emblematic faces of the Hirak opposition. He has been vocal against army chief Ahmed Gaid Salah. The arrest of Tabou comes at the time when the military is working frantically to fast-track a presidential election that the population is likely to reject. Part of the strategy of achieving such election is to reduce the Hirak movement by eliminating opposition voices, even the most moderate ones. The military and its supporters are also using the ethnic card to divide the population. In addition to the jailing people who carry the Amazigh flag, the Algerian state TV used for the first time the racist term against Berbers when address the Karim Tabou arrest. Mr. Tabou hails from the Berber Kabylie region and with his arrest, the military command hopes to stir ethnic trouble to distract the Hirak movement.
