ADDIS ABABA, May 12 (News Agencies) - The head of Ethiopia's security forces was killed Saturday by an Ethiopian officer, state radio reported, quoting the office of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.
Kinfe Gebre-Medhin, who was also a leading member of the Tigray Peoples' Liberation Front (TPLF), the main party in the country's ruling coalition, was killed "as he arrived at the officers' club for work," the prime minister's office said.
"A shot was fired" by an officer with "the rank of major," it said without specifying whether the assassin was in the army or the police. It said that he was arrested.
The prime minister's office said police were investigating the shooting and would make their findings public.
Kinfe, a member of the TPLF political bureau and central committee, was considered one of Meles' closest associates.
The killing follows a dissident movement within the TPLF led by hardliners opposed to Meles' increasingly liberal economics and his stance on Eritrea, with which Ethiopia fought a bloody border war.
Several heavyweights from the northern Tigray region bordering Eritrea were suspended from the central committee of the TPLF, a former rebel movement now the main party in the multi-ethnic coalition formed in 1989.
Most are of Marxist orientation and opposed negotiations with Eritrea that led to the signing of a peace plan in December 2000. They also accuse Meles of caving in to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
Kinfe, who was from Axum, in Tigray, was given the highly sensitive dossier of immigration security five years ago.
