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Chief of Algerian police killed by colleague

25 February 2010 22:10 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. The powerful chief of Algeria’s national police was shot and killed by a colleague during a meeting Thursday in his office at the North African country’s security headquarters, a law enforcement official said, APA reports citing Associated Press.

Two others were injured in the attack on Ali Tounsi, including a security chief for the Algiers region, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to give information to the media.

A law enforcement official told The Associated Press that the attacker, an unidentified police colonel, died after shooting himself. Algeria’s APS national news agency, citing an Interior Ministry statement, said he was seriously injured and taken to a hospital.

A judicial inquiry has been opened into the shooting, APS said, adding that the attacker had been seized by a "fit of madness."

In recent years, Tounsi continued to battle holdouts in the insurgency, who pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden’s international terrorist network and formed a group called Al-Qaida in Islamic North Africa.

The assassination took place in a climate of political tension in Algeria, which has been rocked by a corruption investigation targeting management at Algeria’s national oil company, Sonatrach.