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President Abdelaziz Bouteflika is expected to return to Algeria on Sunday after two weeks in a Swiss hospital as he faces mass protests that pose the biggest threat to his 20-year rule.
In the clearest indication yet that the generals sympathize with tens of thousands of Algerians who want Bouteflika to step down, the chief of staff said the military and the people had a united vision of the future, state TV reported. Lieutenant General Gaed Salah did not mention the protests.
A source familiar with the matter told Reuters Bouteflika would return on Sunday. An Algerian government plane landed at Geneva’s Cointrin airport earlier on Sunday. A Reuters witness saw the Gulfstream executive jet, the one which had taken Bouteflika to Geneva on Feb. 24, touch down at the airport amid a heavy police presence.
Swiss newspaper La Tribune de Geneve reported that the plane was due to leave Geneva at 3 p.m. (1400 GMT). It did not identify its source.
There was no immediate sign of any ambulance or motorcade carrying the 82-year-old Bouteflika. The ailing president has rarely been seen in public since suffering a stroke in 2013.