Algeria issues death sentences over wildfire killing

The murder of Jamal Ben Ismail, a singer who said he had gone to the Kabylie region outside Algiers to help battle wildfires that blazed across Algeria in 2021, shocked the country.

The fires killed dozens of people and left towns and villages in ruins. Authorities said arsonists had started the blazes, without giving any details. After he traveled to Kabylie, Ben Ismail was seized by dozens of young men from Larbaa Nath Irathen and burned alive according to testimony and videos presented during the trial.

Judges also sentenced 37 other people to terms of between two and 10 years in prison and acquitted 17 others.

The Kabylie region, a hotspot in the 1990s insurgency, remains politically sensitive with local demands for greater representation for the local culture and language.