{"id":367889,"date":"2010-02-26T14:41:00","date_gmt":"2010-02-26T19:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16711557.post-6782784380999069224"},"modified":"2010-02-26T14:41:12","modified_gmt":"2010-02-26T19:41:12","slug":"algeria-probes-police-chief-murder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/367889","title":{"rendered":"Algeria Probes Police Chief Murder"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Ali Tounsi, right, had reportedly dismissed the police officer who shot him dead. [Reuters]<\/a>
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n

Friday, February 26, 2010
10:14 Mecca time, 07:14 GMT <\/p>\n

Algeria probes police chief murder <\/p>\n

Ali Tounsi had reportedly dismissed the police officer who shot him dead <\/p>\n

Algeria has opened a judicial inquiry into the killing of its national police chief, state radio reported.<\/p>\n

“A judicial enquiry has been opened to determine the circumstances of this distressing event,” the radio said quoting a ministry statement, without giving further details.<\/p>\n

The inquiry comes a day after Ali Tounsi was shot dead by one of his aides during a meeting in his office in Algiers, the capital.<\/p>\n

Algerian state media reported that the shooter, a retired officer, had been gripped by “madness” at the time.<\/p>\n

Arabic language daily El Khabar said the official, named in media reports as Chouib Woustache, opened fire after confronting Tounsi over reports the chief was planning to sack him.<\/p>\n

The reports were corroborated by Kamel Mansari, a journalist based in Algiers, who told Al Jazeera that the attacker – the chief commander of the police air division – had been dismissed by Tounsi a day earlier after weeks of disagreement.<\/p>\n

Checkpoints<\/p>\n

Mansari said police checkpoints had sprung up around Algiers following the incident.<\/p>\n

He also said rumours had been circulating in Algiers recently that Tounsi was about to be dismissed by the president.<\/p>\n

Several newspapers said an inquiry ordered by Tounsi into bribery allegations involving helicopter parts suppliers had implicated Woustache.<\/p>\n

“The perpetrator did not accept the conclusions of this inquiry,” the Arabic-language Echorouk daily said in its online edition.<\/p>\n

“He wasn’t ready to submit to any administrative sanction or be subjected to prosecution. He acted after getting wind that he was about to be fired.”<\/p>\n

The El Watan daily said on its website that the disgruntled official also fired on other colleagues present at the meeting, but there has been no official confirmation of this.<\/p>\n

Yazid Zerhouni, Algeria’s interior minister, paid tribute to the “fiery patriotism” of Tounsi, who took the job in 1994 when Algeria was battling anti-government Islamist fighters.<\/p>\n

“Tounsi gave his whole life to the service of his nation, to the anti-terrorist campaign over the past 16 years and to the modernisation of national security,” the minister said.<\/p>\n

Source: Al Jazeera and agencies
<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ali Tounsi, right, had reportedly dismissed the police officer who shot him dead. [Reuters]Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos Friday, February 26, 2010 10:14 Mecca time, 07:14 GMT Algeria probes police chief murder Ali Tounsi had reportedly dismissed the police officer who shot him dead Algeria has opened a judicial inquiry into the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4243,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-367889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4243"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=367889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367889\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=367889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=367889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=367889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}