An Algerian French writer whose arrest in Algeria on accusations of undermining national unity and security inflamed tensions with France was sentenced to five years in prison on Thursday.
The writer, Boualem Sansal, who was born in Algeria and became a French citizen last year, was arrested in November because of statements he made to French news media siding with Morocco in a territorial dispute with Algeria.
His detention raised an outcry from other authors worldwide, and his sentencing came after months of pleas for his freedom from the French president, Emmanuel Macron. France was once Algeria’s colonial ruler.
Mr. Sansal was tried and sentenced without being allowed access to legal counsel, according to his lawyer in France, Francois Zimeray.
“Cruel detention, 20 minutes of hearing, a forbidden defense and ultimately five years in prison for an innocent writer,” Mr. Zimeray said in a statement. The sentence, he said, “betrays the very meaning of the word justice.”
Mr. Sansal, who was diagnosed with cancer and is believed to be about 80, is being held at Kolea prison, outside the capital, Algiers, according to Mr. Zimeray.
“His age and his state of health make each day of incarceration even more inhumane,” the lawyer said. “I appeal to the Algerian president: Justice has failed, at least let humanity prevail.”
Mr. Zimeray said in a text message that the next steps in the case were not clear but that the coming weeks might be decisive. “It’s in the hands of the Algerian government,” he said.
Mr. Macron echoed the sentiment. Speaking to reporters at a briefing on Thursday, he called Mr. Sansal a “great writer” and, noting his poor health, urged his release.
“I know I can count on the humanity of the Algerian authorities,” the French president said before adding: “In any case, I very much hope so.”
Mr. Macron has been taking a more conciliatory tone since accusing Algeria in January of dishonoring itself with Mr. Sansal’s detention.
This month, Mr. Sansal’s lawyer appealed to the United Nations to take a stand in the matter. He called the writer’s detention arbitrary and said that it had occurred in a “larger context” of widespread denial of freedom of expression and the weaponization of the Algerian justice system.
After Mr. Sansal was arrested upon his arrival in Algeria last year, his case drew condemnation from French lawmakers and intellectuals, as well as writers around the world. Winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature, including Annie Ernaux and Orhan Pamuk, and other noted authors like Salman Rushdie joined an opinion article by the French Algerian writer Kamel Daoud in Le Point newsmagazine, denouncing “editorial terrorism” in Algeria.
Repression of Algerian journalists has been increasing in recent years. In 2019, mass protests forced Algeria’s president from power. His replacement, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, who was elected with military support, has pushed the country toward harsher authoritarianism.
Dozens of journalists are believed to have been imprisoned in Algeria as the government has sought to prevent mass protests from flaring again, though the figures are murky given the difficulty of independent reporting, experts say.
Mr. Sansal has long been outspoken about his opposition to Islamism and critical of the Algerian government. In 2012, he was denied the cash portion of a prize by the Arab Ambassadors Council in Paris after attending a writers festival in Jerusalem.
The statements he made that led to his detention came at a particularly fraught time for relations between France and Algeria.
In October, Mr. Macron told Moroccan lawmakers he believed that Western Sahara — subject of a territorial dispute between Algeria and Morocco, a former French protectorate — should be under Moroccan sovereignty, angering Algerians.
Mr. Sansal had also said that Algeria benefited from French colonization because it gained territory in the Western Sahara that once belonged to the kingdom of Morocco.
Mr. Sansal, who had been working as an engineer for the Algerian government, published his first book, “The Oath of the Barbarians,” in 1999. The novel was critical of Islamic fundamentalism and government repression, putting Mr. Sansal out of a job and paving the way for a second career as a writer and commentator.
