ALGIERS, Jan 30 (AFP) - An Algerian Islamic leader said Sunday his group had killed the former chief of the Armed Islamic Group (GIA), Djamel Zitouni, for having "deformed the image of Islam."
"Djamel Zitouni was killed in Blida (southwest of Algiers) by elements of the LIDD (Islamic League of Dawa and Jihad) in an ambush that we laid for him," Ali Benhadjar told the Algerian daily Le Soir.
Benhadjar said that Zitoune, "because of his practices, deserved to die," having "deformed the image of Islam," but did not say when the ambush killing took place.
The GIA had previously announced Zitouni's death on July 16, 1996, less than four months after the kidnapping of seven French Trappist monks in Tibehirine.
All seven were found beheaded the following May 30, and Benhadjar said the GIA leader was to blame for their deaths, adding that the French government was partly responsible.
He also said that Pierre Claverie, the archbishop of Oran killed on August 1, 1996, had a "heated discussion" about the monks with then French foreign minister Herve de Charette on the night before he was killed.
In addition to the monks' deaths, Zitouni had claimed responsibility for the bloody hostage-taking of an Air France Airbus in December 1994, and a wave of bomb attacks in France during the summer of 1995.
The LIDD, which announced a ceasefire in October 1997, said January 13 that it would disband so that members, between 100 and 200 according to press reports, could benefit from President Abdelaziz Bouteflika's amnesty offer.
Bouteflika told Arab interior ministers gathered in Algiers Saturday that "all means" would be mobilized to fight groups that had not renounced violence by the offer's January 13 deadline.
"The state is from this point forward, fully justified in using all means at its disposal, without exception, to guarantee order and security," said the Algerian president.
