Algerian court upholds writer's 5-year sentence in a case that's strained ties with France

ALGIERS, Algeria — A court in Algeria on Tuesday upheld French-Algerian author Boualem Sansal's five-year prison sentence in a case that has raised alarm over freedom of expression in Algeria and pushed tensions with France to the brink.

The ruling denies a request made by prosecutors at an appeal hearing last week. They asked a judge to give Sansal the maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. The ''2084: The End of the World'' author was charged in March under Algeria's anti-terrorism laws and convicted of ''undermining national unity,'' receiving his initial five-year sentence then.

Sansal's appeal was closely watched in both France and Algeria. It caps a saga that has turned the novelist into a unlikely cause célèbre, uniting francophone writers, members of France's far right and European lawmakers in a rare chorus demanding his release.

The issue arose last year when, in an interview with a French right-wing media outlet, Sansal questioned Algeria's current borders, arguing that France had redrawn them during the colonial period to include lands that once belonged to Morocco. The 80-year-old dual citizen was arrested the following month and later lambasted by the president in a speech to Algeria's parliament.

The case has unfolded at a historic low point in Algeria's relations with France, which were strained further over the disputed Western Sahara. The territorial dispute has long helped shape Algeria's foreign policy, with its backing of the Polisario Front, a pro-independence group that operates out of refugee camps in southwestern Algeria. France angered Algeria last year shifted its longstanding position to back regional rival Morocco's sovereignty plan.

Analysts say that Sansal has become collateral damage in the broader diplomatic fallout and describe the charges as a political lever Algiers is deploying against Paris.

Sansal's supporters hope military-backed President Abdelmadjid Tebboune will grant a pardon on Saturday, when Algeria marks Independence Day and traditionally frees selected prisoners as part of a national amnesty.

''Now that a verdict has been handed down, we can imagine that clemency measures may be taken, especially because of our compatriot's health,'' French Prime Minister François Bayrou told reporters on Tuesday.

France's Foreign Ministry said it ''deplores'' the decision to sentence Sansal to prison.

''This decision is both incomprehensible and unjustified,'' it said in a statement.

The timing is dire, Sansal's supporters in France and Algeria warn, as he battles prostate cancer and has spent part of his detention in a prison hospital. He appeared in court on Tuesday looking frail and without his trademark ponytail.

Before his arrest, Sansal's work faced bans from Algerian authorities but he regularly travelled between Paris and Algiers without issue. His books — written in French — are little read in Algeria.

However, he has amassed a large following in France for books and essays in which he regularly criticizes Algeria's leaders after 1962, when it won independence from French colonial rule, and the role of Islam in society. Under the imprint of the prestigious French publishing house Gallimard, he has published 10 novels and won a prize for the best novel of the year, the Grand Prix du Roman, in 2015.

His case has split opinion in Algeria. Many see no place for writers in prison, while others view Sansal's comments about the country's borders as a provocation and an affront to their patriotism.

The arrest has brought new attention to the limits on freedom of expression in Algeria. Rights groups — including Amnesty International and Algeria's National Committee for the Liberation of Detainees — have said hundreds of journalists, activists, poets and lawyers have been detained or imprisoned for speech-related offenses in recent years. That includes many facing terrorism charges similar to Sansal's.