A criminal court in Algeria Feb. 21 acquitted former Guantánamo Bay detainee Mustafa Hemlili of charges of counterfeiting and affiliation with a militant group. Hemlili was released from Guantánamo, along with fellow inmate Hederbash Sufian, after a six-year detention period. The court separated the trials of the two defendants, stating that the only link between them was the date of their release. Sufian's trial was postponed due to poor health after his lawyers presented evidence showing that he suffers from mental trauma as a result of his treatment at the US naval facility. Hemlili had traveled with family members to Mali, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan without a passport before going to the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region to work with an international relief agency assisting Afghan refugees. After the 9-11 attacks, Hemlili was captured in Peshawar, Pakistan, with a forged Iraqi passport. (Jurist, Feb. 22)

Niger's new ruling junta lifted a curfew and reopened the borders a day after consolidating control in a Feb. 18 coup d'etat that toppled President Mamadou Tandja. The army stormed the palace during a cabinet meeting and seized Tandja and detained his ministers before announcing it was suspending a constitution that the 71-year-old leader had pushed through with a contested referendum last year. "The situation is under control," assured junta spokesman Col. Goukoye Abdoulkarim. "There is no single voice of dissension in either Niamey or in other parts of the country."

Moroccan authorities ordered closed the independent news magazine Le Journal Hebdomadaire and seized its assets this week, following what editors and press freedom advocates call a long campaign of harassment. Liquidators took control of the country's most critical publication this week after a Casablanca commercial appeals court declared Jan. 25 that Le Journal Hebdomadaire's former publishing group, Media Trust, and its current one, Trimedia, were bankrupt.

Preet Bharara, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and Michele M. Leonhart, the acting administrator of the DEA, announced that Oumar Issa, Harouna Toure and Idriss Abelrahman arrived in the Southern District of New York Dec. 18 to face charges of conspiracy to commit acts of "narco-terrorism" and conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization. The charges stem from the defendants' alleged agreement to transport cocaine through West and North Africa with the intent to support three terrorist organizations—al-Qaeda, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Magreb (AQIM), and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). All three have been designated by the US Department of State as "Foreign Terrorist Organizations."

On the day the Barack Obama received his Nobel Prize in Oslo, one of the runner-up Peace Prize nominees, Western Sahara independence activist Aminatou Haidar, was on the 25th day of a hunger-strike at an airport in Lanzarote, Spain. On Dec. 10, leaders from around the world received a hand-signed letter from Haidar, asking for their urgent support. In the letter, Haidar, who is protesting her unlawful deportation to Spain after she refused to acknowledge Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara says, "my spirit remains strong but I feel my physical strength is fading fast." She is now unable to stand and a doctor who examined her this week listed her symptoms as anemia, muscular atrophy and gastric hemorrhaging.

An Algerian court Nov. 29 sentenced in absentia Guantánamo Bay detainee Ahmed Belbacha to 20 years in prison for being part of an "overseas terrorist group." Belbacha has been cleared for release from Guantánamo but says he does not want to return to his home country of Algeria for fear of torture and has requested asylum in the US. Belbacha has been held in Guantánamo since 2002 after he was captured in Pakistan. Human Rights Watch reported that he tried to commit suicide at Guantánamo but would rather stay there than return to Algeria. HRW said that there are approximately 60 detainees who face a credible threat of torture or persecution if they return to their home country. (Jurist, Nov. 30)

An Algerian criminal court acquitted former Guantánamo Bay detainees Abdulli Feghoul and Terari Mohamed on Nov. 22, according to the Algérie Presse Service. Feghoul and Mohamed were repatriated to Algeria in August 2008 after being held at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility for seven years. The Algerian state prosecutor had sought a 20-year sentence against Feghoul and Mohamed for allegedly belonging to a foreign terrorist group. Defense lawyer Farid Abbache stated that while the former detainees admitted to involvement in theft and drug trafficking, they denied any connection with terrorist groups.

Hundreds of protesters hurled stones and petrol bombs at police, who responded with tear gas and armored cars, in Algiers on Both Oct. 19 and 20. One officer was seriously injured. The clashes broke out on when residents of a shantytown in the Diar Echams district of the city protested that they had not been included on a list of people who qualified for new housing. (Reuters, Oct. 20) The clashes came as US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Africa Vicki Huddleston arrived in Algiers for talks on closer counter-terrorism ties with the regime. At a press conference, she hailed the "good co-operation" between Algiers and Washington on regional security concerns. (Magharebia, Oct. 21)