Algerian youths rioted this week in the town of Tiaret after an off-duty police officer shot dead a man at pointblank range in an apparent dispute, newspapers reported Thursday.
The riot broke out on Wednesday following the funeral of the young man, who was shot late Tuesday by the officer in Tiaret, some 340 kilometres (205 miles) southeast of Algiers, the reports said.
The man, who was in the company of a young woman, had asked the officer to leave the area, according to newspapers.
On Wednesday, after the burial, mourners in the funeral procession stopped in front of the prefect's office, shouting "state killers," the Daily Oran said.
Meanwhile, youths lit tires, damaged lampposts at a main square and used rocks to break town hall windows.
Police used tear gas to break up the protests, El Khabar newspaper said.
Police told the Daily Oran that the murderer had not been identified, but admitted that the weapon used suggested he may have been a policeman.
Algeria's paramilitary police or gendarmes have come under fire for using excessive violence against ethnic Berber youths who unleashed riots in April after the shooting death of a teenager in police custody.
Dozens of people were killed in the riots, mainly by police fire, and a government-ordered investigation accused the gendarmes of perpetrating intentional and gratuitous violence against Berbers, who live in the northeastern Kabylie region -- ALGIERS (AFP)
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