Algerian man found after being kidnapped and held in sheep pen for 26 years
Algerian authorities are investigating a case involving the kidnapping of a man for nearly 30 years.
Ben Imran Omar who is from Djelfa in Algeria was kidnapped in 1996 at the age of 16.
Omar went missing during a decade-long conflict between Algeria's government and Islamist groups with fears that he had either been killed or kidnapped during the unrest.
Details provided in a statement from Algeria’s Djelfa Judiciary Council indicate that he was found in the house of his neighbor in the municipality of Al-Qadid on May 13.
This was after a complaint was filed by the brother of the victim to the Regional Division of the National Gendarmerie in Al-Qudid on May 12. The complaint was against an unknown person based on defamation on social media, that his brother (Omar) was in the house of his neighbor.
Omar was found in the warehouse of his 61-year-old neighbour after the Public Prosecutor at the Idrisiya Court ordered the National Gendarmerie to open an in-depth investigation and move judicial police officers to the said house.
Local media reports indicate that the victim was found in an underground hole that served as a sheep pen, covered with hay.
Activists circulated a clip capturing the moment the victim was rescued from the hole where he was detained for 26 years, in a state of shock and unable to speak.
The Public Prosecution has since ordered psychological and medical care for the victim.
Omar's cousin also took to social media to share photos of the victim with his dog with allegations that his dog which was with him at the time of the kidnap had been poisoned or hanged because he wouldn’t stop barking in front of his neighbour’s house where he was kept.
The prosecution case
The suspect is being prosecuted for kidnapping a person and luring him, detaining a person without an order from the authorities and outside the cases permitted by law, and human trafficking when the victim is vulnerable.
An investigating judge at the Djelfa Judicial Council on May 14 ordered that six defendants in the case be placed in temporary detention.
They are being prosecuted for failure to notify the competent authorities of the crime which is punishable by law.
