Oran Court Sentences Daoud and Dahdouh to Five Years

The criminal court in Fellaoucène, Oran, sentenced the writer Kamel Daoud and his wife, the psychiatrist Aïcha Dahdouh, to five years in prison and a fine of 300 000 DA, in their absence, El Khabar reported on 10 November 2026. The court also confirmed the international arrest warrant against them. The case is the complaint of Saâda Arbane. The charges are disclosure of professional secrecy, theft of a medical file, and invasion of privacy, the same report said.

Six years were asked. Five were given.

El Khabar reported that, at the 13 October hearing, the prosecutor asked for six years against each of them. When the complaint was filed, the specialized psychiatric hospital in Sidi Chahmi joined as a civil party. The investigating judge heard its representative about the complainant's medical file. According to the same report, a psychiatrist there had been treating her.

After the decision, her lawyer, Me Aïcha Derrar, said: "Ce jugement constitue une reconnaissance par la justice du préjudice subi par ma cliente et de l'exploitation de son drame, malgré son refus et le fait qu'elle ait informé l'écrivain de sa décision." El Khabar printed that line.

El Khabar reported that she had wanted to attend the hearing and said she could not, because of her family situation and the divorce proceedings with Daoud. ActuaLitté says the hearing she missed was the one on 13 October. El Khabar also reported that she has not been able to return since October 2024, and that she wants to oppose the judgment and explain herself before the Oran court.

A fine ActuaLitté puts at about 2000 €

ActuaLitté reported on 10 November 2026 that Le Figaro had revealed the decision and that Algérie Presse Service had confirmed it. The fine in that report is 300.000 Algerian dinars, about 2000 €. Both defendants were absent and were judged by default, ActuaLitté reported. The court confirmed the international arrest warrant, the same report said.

Daoud answered on X. He denounced "un procès sans défense ni justice". He asked: "Quel prix pour la liberté d'écrire ?" He closed with a line from Victor Hugo: "Je resterai proscrit, voulant rester debout." ActuaLitté printed those three lines. The report says he also recalled an April sentence for the novel, which has never been published or sold in Algeria.

That earlier sentence was three years in prison and a fine of five million dinars, ActuaLitté reported. It followed a complaint by the Organisation nationale des victimes du terrorisme. It rested on the Charte pour la paix et la réconciliation nationale, adopted in 2005, and its 2006 implementing ordinance, ActuaLitté reported. Article 46 of that scheme punishes some uses of the memory of the "tragédie nationale" when they are treated as harming the institutions or the image of Algérie, ActuaLitté reported.

What she says he took, and what his wife denies

Saâda Arbane survived a massacre during the civil war of the 1990s, ActuaLitté reported. She accuses the novelist of drawing on her life and on medical confidences to build the main character of Houris. A few days after the Goncourt was awarded on 4 November 2024, she said so on the channel One TV, ActuaLitté reported.

She told Mediapart she was "soulagée", ActuaLitté reported.

Aïcha Dahdouh said: "Je suis innocente. Je n'ai pas divulgué le secret médical." ActuaLitté printed that line from interviews she gave Mediapart and Casbah Tribune on 8 November. She said she had never taken or passed on her former patient's file. She also said a divorce was underway, and that she now means to defend her position apart from the writer's, the same report said. On 25 October she had sent AFP a statement contesting any breach of medical secrecy, ActuaLitté reported.

Paris has not finished with Houris

On 8 September the criminal court in Paris acquitted Kamel Daoud in a separate defamation case brought by Saâda Arbane after an interview in Le Figaro, ActuaLitté reported. The judges found the statements did not let them identify her.

The privacy case is a different proceeding, and it has not been heard on the merits. A hearing is set for 9 December 2026, at 13h30, before the 17th chamber of the tribunal judiciaire de Paris, ActuaLitté reported.

Gallimard took his side in November 2024, ActuaLitté reported. Antoine Gallimard said then that the plot and the characters of Houris were fiction. The house also said Aïcha Dahdouh had not taken part in documenting the novel.

So the Oran judgment is a default sentence, reported the same afternoon by El Khabar and by ActuaLitté. The French privacy hearing is still on the calendar for 9 December.

Photo: Kamel Daoud, 5 February 2015. Photo by Claude Truong-Ngoc, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.