Peace moves in Algeria could see Ahmed Zaoui sent home

Ahmed Zaoui

A peace plan in Algeria should be considered by the Government when it decides on the Ahmed Zaoui case, National's Tony Ryall says.

Mr Zaoui, a former Algerian MP, fled to this country in 2003 and was held in prison for two years after the Security Intelligence Service declared him a threat to national security.

He was declared a genuine refugee by the Refugee Status Appeals Authority two years ago but only freed on bail in December by the Supreme Court.

Last month Algerians voted overwhelmingly to approve a peace plan granting amnesty to many of the country's Islamic extremists, an attempt to turn the page on a brutal insurgency that has left an estimated 150,000 dead.

Immigration Minister Paul Swain has indicated that no decision will be made on the case until the Inspector-General of Security Justice, Paul Neazor, has finished reviewing the evidence that caused the SIS to declare Mr Zaoui a threat to national security.

Mr Ryall said the amnesty should be considered.

"If Algeria is moving into a period of national reconciliation, where they are welcoming back those who were previously involved in politics, then there is no impediment for the return of Mr Zaoui back to his homeland," Mr Ryall told National Radio.

Mr Zaoui's lawyer Deborah Manning said the amnesty was no protection.

"It's not going to be safe for Mr Zaoui to go back to Algeria because this amnesty essentially applies for military generals and is giving them impunity for the gross human rights abuses that they committed in the last decade," she said also on National Radio.

"These are the people who threatened Mr Zaoui and if anything they have been given more impunity."

Mr Zaoui felt the amnesty was shallow and lacked consultation with opposition parties, she said.

Green MP Keith Locke agreed.

"They might think they are still above the law and there's no consequence."

In July Ms Manning visited Mr Zaoui's wife and four sons at an undisclosed location in South East Asia and had applied for them to come to New Zealand under the family reunification programme.

Last Thursday, more than 97 per cent of Algerian voters approved the Charter for Peace and National Reconciliation, a personal initiative of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika.

The amnesty offer excludes Islamists who committed massacres, rapes or bomb attacks in public places. The government is still working on drawing up the laws that will put the charter in place.

Algeria's insurgency started in 1992 when the army cancelled a second round of voting in the country's first multi-party legislative elections to thwart a likely victory by the now-banned fundamentalist Islamic Salvation Front, known as FIS.

Daily beheadings and massacres committed by Islamic extremists followed, and tens of thousands of civilians were killed. Government security forces also were accused of having at least a passive role in some of the bloodshed.

Attacks have waned in recent years after other reconciliation attempts, in 1997 and 1999. Some 10,000 armed militants have turned in their weapons over the years, Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia said this month.

Mr Zaoui was a FIS candidate. He has been accused of being associated with the militant Armed Islamic Group (GIA), but has denied any such involvement.

Many of the militants still active are members of the Salafist Group for Call and Combat, a banned Islamic group with ties to al-Qaeda. The group rejected the amnesty, though the government expects at least 200-300 of its members to take up the offer.

Algeria is promising a tough crackdown on militants who do not accept the amnesty and hand in their weapons.

- NZPA