The statement, disseminated through social media and picked up by the press, notes that he passed away last Saturday “due to a long illness”, whose nature is not specified.

Zeroual served as the first magistrate from 1994 to 1999 in an interim capacity and was elected president in the elections held that year.

That five-year period was marked by a violent clash between the government and the Islamic Salvation Front, whose followers resorted to violent means to seize the presidency and caused enormous economic and social damage to this North African country.

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