ALGIERS: The 19-year-old son of a businessman kidnapped and found dead in Algeria’s restive Kabylie region this month was killed by three friends, two of whom have now been arrested, police said yesterday.
The third suspect “will be arrested in a very short time,” the regional commander of the national police said at a news conference at Tizi Ouzou, the main city in Kabylie, 100 km south of the capital Algiers.
“The victim died from strangulation after being beaten in a house that is under construction,” the APS news agency quoted the unidentified officer as saying.
The body of Ghilas Hadjou was found buried near a beach in Tizi Ouzou where militants linked to Al-Qaeda are active, newspaper reports said.
His body, which was found on Wednesday evening, bore signs of strangulation, they added.
Two friends allegedly involved in the murder, aged 19 and 25, were arrested on Wednesday “with the help of citizens and information provided by the victim’s mobile sim card,” said the officer, adding the case “has nothing to do with terrorism.”
Hadjou, the son of a businessman from the coastal town of Azeffoun northeast of Tizi Ouzou, was abducted on Oct. 18 on a road linking Azeffoun to his village of Mellata.
Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), which stems from a group started in the late 1990s by radical Algerians, is active in Kabylie where some 70 people have been kidnapped since 2005.
Earlier Thursday an Algerian court sentenced to death eight men for murdering a businessman, APS reported, adding that some of them had confessed to being Al-Qaeda members.
The trial lasted only three days, involving 14 defendants, six of whom claimed AQIM affiliation, the news agency said.
Kidnapped Algerian teen killed by friends
Kidnapped Algerian teen killed by friends
Lebanon says two killed in Israeli strike on Palestinian refugee camp
- NNA said “an Israeli drone” targeted a neighborhood of the Ain Al-Helweh camp
- It reported that one person was killed and an unspecified number wounded
SIDON: Lebanon said an Israeli strike on the country’s largest Palestinian refugee camp killed two people on Friday, with Israel’s army saying it had targeted the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
The official National News Agency said “an Israeli drone” targeted a neighborhood of the Ain Al-Helweh camp, which is located on the outskirts of the southern city of Sidon.
Lebanon’s health ministry said two people were killed in the raid. The NNA had earlier reported one dead and an unspecified number of wounded.
An AFP correspondent saw smoke rising from a building in the densely populated camp as ambulances headed to the scene.
The Israeli army said in a statement that its forces “struck a Hamas command center from which terrorists operated,” calling activity there “a violation of the ceasefire understandings between Israel and Lebanon” and a threat to Israel.
The Israeli military “is operating against the entrenchment” of the Palestinian militant group in Lebanon and will “continue to act decisively against Hamas terrorists wherever they operate,” it added.
Israel has kept up regular strikes on Lebanon despite a November 2024 ceasefire that sought to halt more than a year of hostilities with the militant group Hezbollah.
Israel has also struck targets belonging to Hezbollah’s Palestinian ally Hamas, including in a raid on Ain Al-Helweh last November that killed 13 people.
The UN rights office had said 11 children were killed in that strike, which Israel said targeted a Hamas training compound, though the group denied it had military installations in Palestinian camps in Lebanon.
In October 2023, Hezbollah began launching rockets at Israel in support of Hamas at the outset of the Gaza war, triggering hostilities that culminated in two months of all-out war between Israel and the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group.
On Sunday, Lebanon said an Israeli strike near the Syrian border in the country’s east killed four people, as Israel said it targeted operatives from Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad.
