Thirty years after seven French monks were kidnapped and killed in the Atlas mountains at the height of Algeria's civil war, a lawyer for the victims' relatives tells RFI an official investigation has yet to uncover the full truth.
On the night of 26 to 27 March 1996, seven monks were abducted from the monastery of Our Lady of Atlas in Tibhirine, south of Algiers, and later murdered. Only their heads were ever recovered.
The attack was claimed weeks later by the Armed Islamic Group (GIA), one of the main insurgent groups fighting the government at the time in the Algerian Civil War.
That remains the explanation accepted by Algerian authorities today. Yet families of the victims are not convinced all the facts have been laid bare.
"The Algerian authorities do not want the full truth to come to light," claims Patrick Baudouin, a lawyer representing the men's relatives.
"Algeria continues to stick to the version blaming the GIA, but the evidence casts doubt on the simplicity of that version."
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Conspiracy theories
In the absence of inquiries in Algeria, relatives filed a civil claim in France, prompting Paris prosecutors to open a judicial investigation in 2004.
Since then, alternative theories have emerged.
One suggests a military blunder – that Algerian forces, tracking the kidnappers by helicopter, mistakenly killed the monks while they were being held hostage. Another posits that the GIA had been infiltrated by Algerian intelligence, and that the murders may have been orchestrated to discredit Islamist groups.
To date, however, no evidence has been uncovered that is strong enough to overturn the official account.
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Stalled investigation
After resistance from the Algerian authorities, a team led by French anti-terrorism judge Marc Trévidic was finally allowed to travel to Algeria to pursue the investigation in 2013.
Via new samples collected from the monks' exhumed remains, forensic experts were able to establish that the men were decapitated after their deaths. A 2018 autopsy report stated that the monks died by having their throats cut, most likely in late April 1996.
Those findings have raised further questions, particularly as the monks’ bodies have never been found – a detail that continues to fuel suspicions of a possible cover-up.
Today, the investigation remains open but is “largely at a standstill”, Baudouin says.
He is calling for more thorough investigations in Algeria, assisted by fuller cooperation from the authorities.
In the meantime, the Tibhirine monks have become a symbol of Christian sacrifice for the Catholic Church. In 2018, they were beatified near Oran alongside 12 other victims of the civil war.
In April, Pope Leo XIV is expected to visit Algeria for the first time and pay tribute to the 19 “blessed martyrs”.
This story has been adapted from the original in French by RFI's Sophiane Amazian.
