Jailed French-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal arrived in Germany for medical treatment on Wednesday after Algiers agreed to a German request that he be pardoned.

A spokeswoman for German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who on Monday had urged Algeria to free the 81-year-old given his "fragile health condition", confirmed to AFP that Sansal had landed in Germany and was being taken straight to hospital.

Earlier Steinmeier had thanked Algeria's President Abdelmadjid Tebboune for the "humanitarian gesture".

According to his family Sansal has prostate cancer.

Sansal was given a five-year jail term in March, accused of undermining Algeria's territorial integrity after he told a far-right French outlet last year that France had unjustly transferred Moroccan territory to Algeria during the

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