Chad minister wounded in drunk hotel shooting-police
07 Mar 2009 15:57:31 GMT Source: Reuters
N'DJAMENA, March 7 (Reuters) - Chad's security minister was injured when a drunk pulled out a gun and shot him outside a hotel, police said on Saturday. Ahmat Mahamat Bachir, the central African country's minister for the interior and security, is a close political ally of President Idriss Deby. "It was a simple case of assault. And I might add that the assailant has not yet been questioned because of his drunken state," Mahamat Achakir, director general of police, told Reuters. "It was at the entrance to the hotel. The minister was going in and the other man was coming out," he said. "The man had blocked the minister's car. When the minister got out to see what was the problem, the man shot at him and the minister jumped on him," he said. Achakir said he could not give any further details about the assailant. Chad is a mainly Muslim country but alcohol is freely available and widely consumed in many areas. Bachir returned to the capital N'Djamena this week after touring the east of the country with Deby and holding a public rallies to drum up popular support in the face of armed rebels who the government says are backed by neighbouring Sudan. Barely a year after eastern rebels crossed the country and besieged N'Djamena, there have been fears of increased rebel activity since the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant against Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir for war crimes in Sudan's Darfur region, which borders eastern Chad. (Reporting by Moumine Ngarmbassa; Writing by Alistair Thomson; Editing by Giles Elgood)
A protester holds a poster of Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir as she chants slogans near the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) headquarters in Khartoum, during a protest against the International ...
