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Algeria's national police chief was shot dead Thursday during a blazing row with a crazed subordinate in his office in central Algiers, the interior ministry said.
Colonel Ali Tounsi was holding a meeting in his office when a police official "apparently overcome by a fit of madness" drew out his service pistol and shot him dead, the ministry said in a statement.
The killer -- identified by local media as head of the Algerian police's helicopter unit -- then turned his gun on himself, and was taken to hospital for treatment to his wounds, the ministry said.
Interior Minister Yazid Zerhouni paid tribute to Tounsi, who began in the post in 1994 when Algeria was in the grip of a struggle to tackle an Islamist insurgency.
"Tounsi gave his whole life to the service of his nation, to the anti-terrorist campaign over the past 16 years and to the modernisation of national security," the minister said.
Arabic language daily El Khabar said the official, identified in media reports as Chouib Woustache, opened fire on Tounsi after confronting him over reports the police chief had ordered an inquiry into allegations he had received bribes from suppliers of helicopter spare parts.
"The perpetrator did not accept the conclusions of this inquiry and wasn't ready to submit to any administrative sanction or be subjected to prosecution. He acted after getting wind that he was about to be fired," the Echorouk Arab daily said in its online edition.
The El Watan daily said on its website that the disgruntled official also fired on other colleagues present at the meeting. The ministry made no reference to other people being targeted.
Police have opened an investigation into the circumstances behind the killing, the ministry said.
