Photograph by: FAYAZ AZIZ
Credit: REUTERS

Three Moroccans were sentenced to three years in prison by the criminal court in Algiers Monday, convicted of belonging to an active terrorist group in the country, a national press agency reported.

Yacine Bouheltit, Bilel Al-Aloui and Mohamed Al-Hamedi were accused by the tribunal in Algeria's capital of entering the country illegally in 2008 and then joining "with the terrorist hideouts in north Algeria".

The three accused have already been implicated in terrorist activities in Morocco, admitting they were members of a hardline Islamic Salafist movement.

They denied their involvement in any terrorist activity in Algeria, however, saying they had come to the country to take part in trading in clothes, drugs and livestock.