Algeria has sentenced French-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal to five years in prison on charges of “undermining national unity”.

A court in Dar El Beida, near Algiers, sentenced the author on Thursday under “anti-terrorism” laws after he gave an interview to far-right French media outlet Frontieres, in which he questioned the borders dividing Algeria from regional rival Morocco.

In the interview, published last October, Sansal argued that France had redrawn Algeria’s borders in the latter’s favour during the colonial period to include lands that once belonged to Morocco. The following month, he was arrested upon arriving in Algiers.

The case has soured relations between Algeria and France, which nosedived last summer when France shifted its position to recognise Morocco’s sovereignty over the disputed Western Sahara territory, and which were further aggravated when Algeria rejected French attempts to return Algerians slated for deportation.

French President Emmanuel Macron appealed on Thursday to the Algerian authorities’ “good sense and humanity”, saying he hoped they would “give him [Sansal] back his freedom and allow him to be treated for the disease he is fighting”.

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French media have reported the author has cancer.

France-Algeria tensions

Sansal, winner of the 2011 Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, has long been a critic of Algerian authorities, but he has regularly visited the country, and his books have been sold there without restrictions.

The author, who rejected court-appointed lawyers and chose to defend himself, denied the remarks violated laws or were meant to harm Algeria, according to Hociane Amine, a lawyer who was in the courtroom.

“Obviously, he has a possibility to appeal. And now that he’s been sentenced, the president is within his rights to grant him a pardon because it’s a political card in the current crisis with France,” Amine said.

Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune has previously criticised Sansal, who was living in France, calling him an “imposter”.

But some observers have suggested the author might be granted a presidential pardon during upcoming Muslim or national holidays.

Sansal’s five-year sentence is half of what prosecutors requested and less than the recommended for those charged under Article 87 of Algeria’s penal code, the controversial “anti-terrorism” statute implemented after mass protests convulsed the country last decade.

Human rights advocates in Algeria claim the laws have long been used to quash anti-government voices.

The author also was fined 500,000 Algerian dinar ($3,735).