Suspended sentence for Moroccan who tore down Algeria flag

A Moroccan protester who broke into the compound of Algeria's consulate in Casablanca and tore down the country's flag during a diplomatic row was given a two-month suspended sentence Thursday. The November 1 incident came during a demonstration against comments by Algeria's President Abdelaziz Bouteflika over the disputed Western Sahara, and a video of it was widely circulated on Moroccan websites. A Casablanca court convicted the accused, named as Hamid N. and said to be a member of Morocco's "Royalist Youth", of "invading a private property" after he scaled the consulate's walls and removed the flag, an Agence France Presse journalist reported. The defendant admitted the charges, saying he had been motivated by patriotism and the desire "to defend the territorial integrity" of Morocco. In addition to the suspended jail term, he was fined 250 dirhams (22 euros). The protest at the Algerian mission took place during an escalation in tensions between the Maghreb arch-rivals, linked to human rights monitoring in the Western Sahara. Bouteflika made a speech in Abuja in October in which he referred to the "massive and systematic human rights violations that take place inside the occupied territories to suppress the peaceful struggle" of the Sahrawi people. Rabat recalled its ambassador to Algiers in protest, and Algeria sharply criticized the incident at its Casablanca mission. The decades-old dispute over the former Spanish colony, which Morocco annexed in 1975 in a move never recognized by the international community, is the main obstacle to closer integration of the Maghreb countries. Rabat often reacts angrily if the sovereignty it claims over the region is challenged. Algeria has historically supported the pro-independence Polisario Front, which rejects Morocco's proposal of broad autonomy for the territory, insisting on its right to a referendum on self-determination. Successive attempts by the United Nations to broker a permanent settlement have stalled.