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Senior Leader of Banned Algerian Islamic Party Flees to Europe
ALGIERS, Sept 5 (News Agencies) - A senior leader of Algeria's outlawed Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), Abdelakder Omar, has fled to Europe despite having his passport impounded, two Algerian newspapers said Wednesday, news agencies reported.
"The sheikh managed to escape the clutches of security services who had him under constant surveillance," the FIS said in an e-mail quoted in the Algerian daily
Sawt El Ahrar. Le Maghreb newspaper also reported he had escaped despite a travel ban.
Omar, 46, was one of the founding members of the FIS and belongs to its ruling consultative council, the Majlis al-Choura. The party was banned in March 1992 after a military faction of the party was allegedly formed, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Omar was one of seven FIS leaders arrested in June 1991 and jailed a year later on conviction of state security offenses. He was a physics professor at the University of Blida, 50 kilometers (30 miles) south of the capital Algiers.
Algerian authorities took away Omar's passport and banned him from leaving the country after his 1995 release from prison, newspapers said.
Five other FIS leaders have been freed, including the movement's head, Abassi Madani. The only remaining FIS official currently behind bars is Madani's firebrand deputy, Ali Belhadj, said AFP.
Omar is the second FIS leader to have fled to Europe. Rabah Kebir managed to get to Germany in 1992 and became a spokesman-in-exile for the movement.
The surprising first round success of the FIS party in elections back in December 1991, though its leadership was behind bars, caused the army to intervene, crackdown on the FIS, and postpone subsequent elections, according to the CIA World Fact Book 2000.
As a result, the FIS currently operates in a continuous low-grade civil conflict with the secular state apparatus, which nonetheless has allowed elections featuring pro-government and "moderate" religious-based parties.
The military wing of the FIS, the Islamic Salvation Army (AIS), was dissolved in January 2000 and come in from the
maquis (Fr: the bush) after a secret deal with the army and an six-month amnesty offer extended in July 1999 by President Abdelaziz Bouteflika.
Many AIS members surrendered under the amnesty program designed to promote national reconciliation. Nevertheless, some residual fighting continues.
After a century of rule by France, Algeria became independent in 1962.
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