49 individuals were given the death penalty by an Algerian court for killing a man who had been wrongly accused of sparking dangerous forest fires in 2021.
According to Mail Online, the victim, Djamel Ben Ismail, was being protected by the police in a police vehicle in August 2021 when he was dragged outside, beaten, and burned to death by a crowd.
After learning that he was being investigated for possible arson, the 38-year-old painter brought himself in at a police station.
Later, it was discovered that Ben Ismail had travelled to the area as a volunteer to assist with fighting the fires.
It was also revealed that he tweeted earlier on the day of his death that he was travelling 200 kilometers from his house to the area of the forest fires to give a helping hand.
When he arrived near the town of Larbaa Nath Irathen in the Tizi Ouzou district, one of the worst hit by the fires, a crowd of local residents accused him of being an arsonist, his father said last year.
‘My son left to help his brothers from Kabyle, a region he loves. They burned him alive… I’m devastated,’ Noureddine Ben Ismail added.
The prosecutor also stated that the police officers who intervened to safeguard and assist the victim suffered injuries.
According to the APS news agency, a court in Dar El Beida “sentenced 49 persons to execution over (Ben Ismail’s) murder and mutilation of his body” on Thursday.
According to APS, the court also sentenced 28 more defendants to prison terms ranging from two years to ten years without parole.
The country’s president, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, requested that authorities “shine light” on the incident when a video of Ben Ismail’s lynching surfaced online.
Additionally, Amnesty International urged Algerian authorities to launch an early investigation into the death and “send a clear message that this brutality won’t go unpunished.”
Located 71 miles west of Algiers in Khemis Miliana, Ben Ismail was laid to rest there.
‘Do you realize, even dead they tortured him?’ Mohamed Khalfi, Ben Ismail’s maternal uncle, told The Associated Press.
‘And what hurts me is that the people filmed. I am his uncle and I ask that justice do its job and that even those who watched without doing anything be judged.’
