On July 18th the court at Sidi M’Hamed passed sentence in the affair which led to two directors of the private channel KBC and a manager in the Ministry of Culture being arrested.
Le tribunal de Sidi M’Hamed (Alger)
Mehdi Benaissa, a director of KBC and manager of the production company Ness Prod, and Riad Hartouf, KBC’s head of production, were each given a six month suspended prison sentence for making “false declarations”.
Nora Nedjai, in charge of issuing filming permits at the Ministry of Culture, was given a one year suspended prison sentence and a fine of 50,000 dinars (€400) for “complicity in abuse of office.”
The three defendants were released in the afternoon. Held in custody since June 26th in the El Harrach prison, they were accused of falsifying filming permits for two of KBC programmes, “Ki Ki Hna Nass” and “Ness Stah”. The sets of these two satirical programmes were sealed by the police.
“Even if the sentence was mild compared to what we expected, we shall appeal, continuing to plead their innocence,” said Fetta Sadat, one of defence lawyers.
Sources: APS, Jeune Afrique, El Watan
