Algeria checking reports about Algerian diplomat killed by terrorist captors

Algerian authorities through the foreign ministry said on Sunday they were still checking press reports that one of the Algerian diplomats kidnapped in northern Mali had been executed by his terrorist captors.

• Algerian authorities through the foreign ministry said on Sunday they were still checking press reports that one of the Algerian diplomats kidnapped in northern Mali had been executed by his terrorist captors.

• A statement attributed to the Mali-based terrorist group calling itself “Movement of Oneness and Jihad in West Africa” (MUJAO) and posted on Internet sites in Algeria and Mauritania claimed that the Algerian diplomat, Tahar Touati, had been executed.

• “The execution of the diplomat came after the expiry of an ultimatum given to the Algerian government. Algerian negotiators refused to agree on a deal to release the hostages at the last minute,” said the statement whose authenticity could not be immediately verified.

• The statement “is currently the focus of the necessary verification to ensure its authenticity,” the Algerian foreign ministry said in a statement released by the official APS news agency in Algiers.

• On hearing the sad news, Echorouk reporters went immediately to Touati’s home-town of Djelfa in south-eastern Algeria to inquire about the moral condition of his distressed family members and to bring them some moral comfort in these dire circumstances.

• All of his relatives and friends met at the family home in Djelfa were found utterly at a loss and deeply shocked at the news of Tahar Touati’s reported execution by his Mujao kidnappers but they are still clinging to the thin hope that the announcement of his brutal death is false only meant as a ploy by his captors to bring more leverage on the Algerian authorities to make them cave in to their blackmailing demands.