An Algerian court on Thursday granted prominent opposition figure and leader of the anti-government protest movement Karim Tabbou release from jail.
Tabbou’s lawyer, Abdelghani Badi, said in a Facebook post that the Algiers court granted his request for the release of his client, who is asking for the end of judicial proceedings against him.
Tabbou was sentenced on March 24 to a year in prison, including six months suspended, for “weakening army morale.”
Another lawyer, Abderrahmane Salhi, told the AP he was awaiting for Tabbou’s release on Thursday outside Kolea’s prison, west of Algiers, with dozens of activists of the anti-government movement.
The court’s decision comes one day after President Abdelmadjid Tebboune granted an amnesty to six other anti-government activists ahead of Algeria’s Independence Day on Sunday, celebrating the country’s independence from France on July 5, 1962.
Mass demonstrations brought down the long-time president of Africa’s largest country and his entourage in April 2019. The pro-democracy movement is looking for more change in a nation whose rulers have been shadowed by the army since its independence.
