An Algerian blogger who was jailed after interviewing an Israeli diplomat has appealed his 10-year sentence, his lawyer says, after global rights groups condemned the severity of the punishment.
Merzoug Touati was convicted on Thursday of providing intelligence to “agents of a foreign power” likely to damage Algeria, by a court in Bejaia, east of Algiers.
The 30-year-old blogger submitted his appeal the following day and was feeling “optimistic,” his lawyer Boubakeur Esseddik Hamaili says.
“I have seen my client, he is doing well and is a tower of strength. He proclaims his innocence as he has done nothing but exercise his rights guaranteed by the constitution,” the lawyer adds.
Touati has been in prison since his arrest in January 2017, over an online video interview with an Israeli foreign ministry spokesman and a Facebook post in which he called for protests against a new financial law.
— AFP
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