TWO sons of Algeria's banned Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) leader, Abassi Madani, were sentenced to more than two years in jail yesterday.
Salim Abassi (30) was given a 32month sentence, and his brother, Ikbal (25), 28 months for membership of a criminal organisation and forging documents.
The two, who had obtained political refugee status in Germany, were accused of providing false papers to members of armed Islamic groups in Algeria.
Accusations of gunrunning, between 1993 and 1995, for the FIS's armed wing, the Islamic Salvation Army (AIS), and the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) were dropped during the trial, which opened in August.
Two other Algerians were also sentenced in the trial, the first in Germany against Islamic activists. Mahmoud Logbi (26) was given a prison term of 10 months for forgery and Nasr Eddine Hemaz (31) received 31 months for illegal arms offences.
Ikbal and Salim Abassi were released from prison in March and April, respectively, having been held in custody since their arrest in March 1995, almost the time they would have served in prison on conviction. Their sentences were in line with prosecution demands.
The two were sentenced to death in absentia in Algeria in March 1993 after nine people died the previous year in a bomb attack at Algiers airport. They obtained political asylum after fleeing to Germany in 1992.
Abassi Madani is under house arrest in Algeria.
Judge Jutta Magiera Steinacker said Ikbal and Salim Abassi belonged, after their arrival in Germany, to an organisation which supplied false papers to members of Algerian Islamic groups considered to be in danger.
The tribunal heard Salim set up the organisation, and the Abassi home in Alsdorl, west Germany, became its nerve centre.
The brothers sent false papers from Germany directly to those who needed them or they were sent via couriers close to the FIS in Algeria, the tribunal heard. The brothers were aided by two other Algerians not on trial.
At the start of the trial the brothers admitted falsifying papers but called their work "humanitarian assistance" for people of their own religion.
When the pair were arrested at their home in March 1995 police seized false papers, a detonator and a large sum of money.
The Algerian conflict has claimed the lives of more than 60,000 people since 1992. The FIS won the first round of legislative elections in Algeria, held at the end of 1991 under the 1989 constitution, which was the first to recognise a multiparty system.
The second round of voting was cancelled by the military in January 1992, and a new constitution was adopted in November 1996.
Fresh legislative elections were held on June 5th in which Algeria chose its first multi party legislature. The assembly is dominated by secular, conservative supporters of President Liamine Zeroual.
. Three people were injured in an explosion yesterday at a bus station in Blida, 50km from the Algerian capital, witnesses said. The three were not seriously hurt. The blast was the latest in a series across Algeria since a security crackdown surrounding the June 5th general elections. Threes people were killed and more than 40 injured last week in two attacks at a market in El Affroun, 70km west of Algiers, and at a cinema in, the capital.