Algeria: Journalist Jailed Pending Trial for 'Espionage'

New York — Algerian authorities should immediately release independent journalist and fixer Said Chitour and should drop all charges against him, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

Prosecutors charged Chitour--who has worked as a fixer and a journalist for the BBC, France 24, and the Washington Post, among others--with espionage for "leaking classified documents" to foreign diplomats, according to news reports. Police arrested him at Algiers International Airport on June 5 as he returned from Spain, according to media reports, but his arrest was not made public until after July 3, when diplomats from an unspecified country told journalists about it at a dinner organized by the U.S. Embassy in Algiers, according to the same media reports.

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