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The accused denied their involvement in any terrorist activity in Algeria
Three are convicted of entering Algeria illegally in 2008, joining with terrorist hideouts in north of country.
ALGIERS - Three Moroccans were sentenced to three years in prison by the criminal court in Algiers Monday, convicted of belonging to an active terrorist group in the country, a national press agency reported.
Yacine Bouheltit, Bilel Al-Aloui and Mohamed Al-Hamedi were accused by the tribunal in Algeria's capital of entering the country illegally in 2008 and then joining "with the terrorist hideouts in north Algeria".
The three accused have already been implicated in terrorist activities in Morocco, admitting they were members of a hardline Islamic Salafist movement.
They denied their involvement in any terrorist activity in Algeria, however, saying they had come to the country to take part in trading in clothes, drugs and livestock.
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Good news about NGOs
Magistrate says Libyans will have right to create NGOs if they are apolitical once Legislation is adopted.
TRIPOLI - Libya's laws are about to be changed to allow the formation of non-governmental organisations while the number of crimes for which the death penalty will apply will be reduced, a magistrate said Tuesday.
"If the new legislation is adopted, Libyan citizens will have the right to create civil associations on condition that they are apolitical," Abdelrahman Boutouta, the head of a legal committee tasked with amending Libya's penal code, told reporters.
According to the magistrate, all clauses forbidding the creation and outlawing membership of NGOs have been removed from the penal code, adding however that a "law of associations" is being drafted.
The penal code sanctions capital punishment for all individuals who support, create, join or finance organisations proscribed by law.
Statutes and rules of civil associations are considered as not promoting the ideals of the Libyan revolution led by Colonel Moamer Gathafi on September 1, 1969, and therefore illegal.
Boutouta also said the amended penal code will limit the death penalty to those convicted of premeditated murder and of committing acts of terrorism.
Under the existing code, which dates back to 1953, 21 crimes are punishable by death including drug trafficking and attacks on the security of the state.
When completed, the new-look penal code must be approved by people's congresses in accordance with Gathafi's philosophy of "people's power," Boutouta said.
He gave no indication of when this might take place.
