Four executed in Algeria

Algiers (Reuter) - Four Muslim fundamentalists were executed but eight others had their death sentences commuted to life imprisonment, the Justice Ministry, quoted by Algiers radio, said yesterday. It did not say when.

Those executed included a man called 'Tayeb the Afghan', sentenced to death with nine others for a raid on a frontier post in 1991 in which three soldiers were killed and mutilated. The radio did not say whether appeals for mercy had been granted for the eight other condemned men, whose appeal was rejected by the Supreme Court last month.

In January, Algeria executed two other fundamentalists - the first death penalties carried out in a year during which 48 men were condemned to death.