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Trial Over 2013 Tiguentourine Gas Plant Attack Set for 17 January

3 November 2026 · Algeria Now

Trial Over 2013 Tiguentourine Gas Plant Attack Set for 17 January — Photo : telegraph.co.uk (adresse collée)

ALGIERS — The trial of detained suspects over the January 2013 terrorist attack on the Tiguentourine gas facility has been scheduled for 17 January 2027 before the criminal court of first instance in Dar El Beida, in Algiers. The case has been placed on the supplementary roll of the current criminal session.

The defendants include a Tunisian national and a man described in the case file as the deputy emir of a battalion known as the Signatories in Blood. They face a long list of charges: membership of a terrorist group operating abroad, founding or leading an armed terrorist organization, premeditated murder, murder with torture, kidnapping and hostage-taking, illegal possession of weapons and ammunition, and the deliberate destruction of public facilities with explosives.

More than 200 witnesses are expected to be heard, dozens of them foreigners, reflecting the international dimension of an attack on a site run with foreign partners.

For readers outside Algeria, Tiguentourine, near In Amenas in the southern province of Illizi, is one of the country's main gas installations. On 16 January 2013 an armed group stormed it and held more than 800 people hostage, including about 130 foreigners. The attack was planned by the jihadist leader Mokhtar Belmokhtar. Thirty-seven hostages were killed before army special forces ended the siege, killing most of the assailants and capturing three.

The attack was a defining moment in Algeria's security doctrine. Algiers refused to negotiate with the hostage-takers and has long argued that concessions and ransom payments to armed groups only encourage further kidnappings, a position reflected in UN Security Council resolution 2133 of 2014.

The alleged roles of the accused are set out in the referral order that sends the case to trial before the court.

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