A court has sentenced 49 people to death after a mob killed a man by beating and burning him alive as they wrongly blamed him for starting devastating forest fires in Algeria, it is reported.
Djamel Ben Ismail, 38,was attacked by a crowd in Larbaa Nath Irathen, in the Tizi Ouzou district which was one of the areas worst hit by wildfire in August last year that killed at least 90 people.
He was dragged from a police station by a crowd who then beat and burnt him to death.
Ben Ismail had gone to the police voluntarily after hearing that he was suspected of arson and was under the protection of officers when he was attacked.
It was later reportedly found that Ismail was innocent of the accusations.
A prosecution statement at the time said that the crowd “dragged him outside, beating and burning him, which led to his death.”
It also stated: “Police officers who intervened to protect and help the victim have also been injured.”
While he had been linked to the cause of the the fires, in fact he had travelled to the region as a volunteer to help extinguish them.
Following a prosecution, now a court in Dar El Beida has “sentenced 49 people to execution over murder and mutilation of his body” reported Andalou Agency.
Algerian authorities reportedly accused the separatist Independence of the Tribes group of inciting the crowd which the organisation has denied.
The court rulings over the death penalties can now be appealed by the Algiers Court of Appeal.
On the day of his death, Ben Ismail had tweeted that he would head to the Kabyle region, 200 miles from his home, to “give a hand to our friends” fighting the fires.
Upon his arrival near the town of Larbaa Nath Irathen, some local residents accused him of being an arsonist, his father said.
“My son left to help his brothers from Kabyle, a region he loves, they burned him alive... I’m devastated,” Noureddine Ben Ismail said.
Ben Ismail was buried in his hometown of Khemis Miliana 71 miles west of Algiers.
“Do you realize, even dead they tortured him?” Mohamed Khalfi, Ben Ismail’s uncle said at the time. “And what hurts me is that the people filmed, I am his uncle and I ask that justice does its job and that even those who watched without doing anything be judged.”
One of Ben Ismail’s friends, Rafik, who did not provide his last name, said he was “an artist, a young man who loves the guitar and loves life... not a violent man.”
Following his death President Abdelmadjid Tebboune called on justice to “shed light” on the killing.
Algeria suspended death sentences following its last executions in 1993 so that they automatically become life sentences.
