Algiers, October 22: Algeria’s top police chief, Major-General Abdelghani Hamel, has replaced about three-quarters of the regional police commanders in four months, El-Watan newspaper reported Friday.
Hamel, who took up his post on July 7 following the February murder of Ali Tounsi, is regarded as close to President Abdelaziz Bouteflika and “decided to give a big kick in the anthill”, the paper said.
The changes in the general directorate of national security (DGSN) affect about 40 police commanders in the wilayas (administrative departments) and the largely young officers who have been named will be confirmed in office on Sunday, the report added.
Only about a dozen wilayas in the north African country have not been affected.
El-Watan said that Hamel’s goals were “the improvement of working conditions and discipline in the ranks” and added that his reforms were not over because he plans to take action at the level of the dairas, or subdivisions of the wilayas.
Hamel, a 58-year-old native of the northwestern Tlemcem region, headed the republican guard, an elite unit of the paramilitary gendarmerie, from 2008 to his new post this year. He was made a major-general on July 5, two days before his appointment.
His predecessor, Tounsi, was shot dead in his Algiers office on February 25 by an aide, Colonel Choueib Oultache. Until Hamel was appointed, the police were led by Abelaziz El-Affani, who heads the police scientific service.
The DGSN, which included 160,000 officers at the end of 2009, is organised into specialised wings including the criminal investigation department, the intelligence service, the public security service, the republican security units and the border and immigration police.
—Agencies