A court in Algeria has sentenced French journalist Christophe Gleizes to seven years in prison on charges of advocating terrorism over his work on a football team in Kabyle, the Amazigh region at the heart of the North African nation's separatist tensions.
The ruling, handed down by the court of Tizi Ouzou in the Kabyle region on 29 June, comes just two days before Algeria's appeals court is set to rule in the high-profile case of Franco-Algerian author Boualem Sansal.
While Sansal's arrest in November 2024 drew widespread attention, the case against Gleizes unfolded largely out of public view—until now.
Gleizes, 36, a freelance sports journalist and regular contributor to So Foot and Society, was arrested in May 2024 while reporting on Jeunesse Sportive de Kabylie (JSK), one of Algeria's most iconic football clubs.
He had entered the country on a tourist visa, the only type generally granted to foreign reporters, to work on a book project and to attend a commemoration marking the tenth anniversary of the death of Cameroonian footballer Albert Ebossé, who died in 2014 under murky circumstances while playing for JSK.
Following his arrest on 28 May 2024, Gleizes was placed under judicial supervision and barred from leaving Algeria.
Though allowed to relocate from Tizi Ouzou to Algiers, he was required to check in at the capital's central police station multiple times a week. He spent more than a year living in a hotel while awaiting trial.
According to his lawyers, the charges relate to interviews Gleizes conducted between 2015 and 2017 with Ferhat Mehenni, a JSK official who later became president of the Movement for the Self-Determination of Kabylie (MAK), which Algeria designated a terrorist group in 2021.
What is MAK, the group Christophe Gleizes is convicted for 'conspiring' with?
The movement was founded in 2001 by the activist Ferhat Mehenni following the 'Black Spring' massacre. In April 2001, Algerian security forces opened fire on protesters in the Kabyle region, killing 126 people and injuring over 5,000.
In 2010, the movement declared the establishment of a provisional government, led by Mehenni, for the Kabyle region in Paris. Most of the movement's leaders are now based in France.
Despite efforts, MAK has very limited international support and is not officially recognised by any country.
The Algerian judicial system has issued several life imprisonment sentences in absentia against the founder of MAK, whom it accuses of involvement in the 2021 wildfires that devastated the country, and of conspiring with Morocco and Israel.
Ferhat Mehenni has denied these allegations.
Prosecutors argued that Gleizes's contact with Mehenni amounted to support for a terrorist organisation, though the interviews predated the MAK's designation and were conducted in the context of football reporting.
An appeal is expected to be filed on 2 July, said Salah Brahimi, president of the Tizi Ouzou Bar Association and lead defence lawyer. Gleizes's team has ten days to appeal.
France's Foreign Ministry has yet to comment on the case.
How tensions between Paris and Algiers affected the case?
For more than a year, Gleizes's case remained under the radar.
His family and editors at So Press, which publishes So Foot, remained silent on the advice of France's diplomatic corps, hoping discretion might lead to a resolution despite rising tensions between Paris and Algiers, according to French daily Le Monde.
Diplomatic tensions between the two countries deepened in 2024 after France officially recognised Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara—a move strongly condemned by Algiers, which supports the separatist Polisario Front in the disputed territory.
Months later, in November, Algerian authorities arrested Boualem Sansal, one of the country's most celebrated authors.
His trial and Gleizes's sentencing have now become flashpoints in the strained relationship between the two countries, where the rise of the right-wing in France and mutual suspicion have often derailed attempts at reconciliation over their colonial past.
"He's not a political person. He's deeply engaged in his reporting, but always approaches it with journalistic integrity", said Franck Annese, founder of So Press, who described the court's decision as "absurd" and "Kafkaesque".
"There's nothing in the file. He's being punished for interviewing a club official, a man who wasn't even labelled a terrorist at the time," added the founder of So Press.
Gleizes co-authored a 2018 book about the exploitation of African footballers and worked on lengthy investigations into abuses in international sports. In 2022, he co-wrote a widely circulated exposé on the French Football Federation.
A new trial could take place as early as October. Following Sunday's sentencing, calls are growing for broader mobilisation, as Gleizes spent his first night behind bars in the Tizi Ouzou prison.
In a statement on Sunday, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) called the sentence "unprecedented and absurd", saying it "shows how political everything has become in Algeria."
His family issued a brief joint statement through RSF, "how can a journalist be punished so harshly simply for doing his job?"
RSF's director general Thibaut Bruttin urged French and Algerian authorities to find a diplomatic solution.
"Christophe doesn't belong in prison. There's not even a shadow of a case," Bruttin added.