The Algerian government, headed by President Abdelaziz Bouteflika since 1999, created the Ad Hoc Inquiry Commission in Charge of the Question of Disappearances (Commission d’Enquête ad hoc chargée de la question des disparus) in September 2003. The aim of this six-person presidential commission chaired by lawyer Farouk Ksentini was to investigate disappearances during the armed conflict between the Algerian government, its allied civilian militias, and various Islamist insurgent organizations. From 1992 to 2002, a period known as the “dark” or “black” decade, thousands of Algerians were allegedly abducted by regime forces, pro-government militias, their Islamist opponents, and other armed groups with unclear political agendas (see entry on Algeria). The six members of the Ad Hoc Inquiry Commission, attached to the National Consultative Commission for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights (Commission Nationale Consultative de Promotion et de Protection des Droits de l’Homme, CNCPPDH), an institution housed under the Algerian presidency, worked for eighteen months, largely in secret. Its confidential report, delivered to President Bouteflika in March 2005, was never made public. The government eventually admitted responsibility for over 6,000 cases – half of all of the suspected disappearances from the civil conflict – and offered the families compensation in lieu of providing substantive details about the fate of their relatives or holding any officials accountable.