Society

A just-solved disappearance case is dominating the world press: a young man who disappeared without a trace when he was 17 has been found after 26 years. He had been locked up all this time just a few hundred meters from his family.

In 1998, an Algerian teenager mysteriously disappeared. Almost 30 years later, the now 45-year-old man was found with his neighbor, who held him captive in his cattle shed.  

The prosecutor's office of Djelfa governorate, 300 kilometers from Algiers, announced this last Tuesday. Following a message shared on social networks, the poor man was discovered in a neighbor's house which was searched by the police. 

This animal pen in which he was held for nearly 30 years is located in the village of El-Guédid, in central Algeria. The victim's relatives told the media that while he was held captive, he could not only hear but also see his family through a small opening in the fenced-in area, but was "unable to scream or run away because of a spell cast on him by his captor." A story that is far from over and gets more and more mysterious. 

The 61-year-old neighbor is a local municipal employee. For decades he lived normally, as if nothing had happened, as if no one had disappeared a stone's throw from his home. 

Eight (!) suspects charged
An update from the Algerian Judicial Council reveals that eight people have now been charged with the crime. Six suspects have been taken into custody, while two others have been placed under judicial supervision.

"A judicial investigation has been opened against the main suspect for abducting and luring a person, detaining a person without an order from the competent authorities and outside the cases authorized by law, as well as human trafficking of a victim in a vulnerable position," the council said.
The two suspects under judicial supervision will be allowed to remain at large while they face trial.

(FVDV for Tagtik/Illustration picture: Photo by Dyu - Ha via Unsplash)