An Algerian court sentenced 49 people to death on Thursday over the lynching of a man falsely accused of starting deadly forest fires last year, state news agency APS reported.

The victim, 38-year-old painter Djamel Ben Ismail, was under police protection in a police van in August 2021 when he a mob 'dragged him outside, beating and burning him, which led to his death,' the local prosecutor said last year.

Ben Ismail had turned himself in at a police station upon hearing that he was suspected of arson, at the height of blazes which killed at least 90 people nationwide.