Killer of Algeria’s top cop sentenced to death

A former Algerian police colonel was sentenced to death Monday for gunning down the national police chief Ali Tounsi during an office meeting in 2010, national news agency APS said.
Chouaib Oultache had been found guilty of murder after a trial that saw bitter sparring between the defense and prosecution.
The death sentence, which had been requested by prosecutors, was handed down after three hours of deliberation. Oultache’s legal team has eight days to take the case to a higher court.
Prosecutors charged that Oultache, who headed the air division of the Directorate General for National Security (DGSN), or civil police, opened fire on Tounsi at his Algiers office on Feb. 25, 2010 after a heated dispute. The court rejected Oultache’s claim that he was defending himself after Tounsi threatened him with a letter-opener.
Tounsi was named police chief in 1994 when the bloodshed in Algeria between armed groups and security forces was at its peak. He focused on boosting counter-terror operations during his time in office.
Meanwhile, the Algerian Army “neutralized” nine radicals in the country’s restive eastern Kabylie region on Tuesday, seizing weapons and ammunition, the Defense Ministry said.
“An army detachment neutralized terrorists near Azzefoun,” a coastal town 170 km east of Algiers, a ministry statement said. The authorities use the word “terrorist” to describe armed extremists who have been active in the country since the early 1990s.
A security source told AFP the militants were shot dead following a search near Azzefoun.
Soldiers also seized ammunition, two Kalashnikov assault rifles, a sniper rifle, a shotgun and five hunting rifles, the source said.
Algeria’s army has stepped up operations in its mountainous regions in recent months, killing at least 30 armed radicals since the beginning of the year.

Source: Arab News