The bodies of six foreigners, their throats cut, have been recovered from the sea near Algiers, the Algerian press reported yesterday. However, security forces quickly denied the reports.
The newspapers Liberte and El-Khabar said the corpses, all of Asian origin, were believed to have been dumped in sewers on the outskirts of Algiers and later washed out to sea by heavy rains.
Security forces dismissed the reports as "pure fabrication" and "groundless". Officials neither confirmed nor denied that bodies had been found.
Japanese, Chinese, South Korean and Vietnamese diplomats said none of their nationals had been reported missing recently, although the Chinese embassy said it had no news of two Chinese nationals missing since 1995.
The South Korean embassy said Algerian security services had reported that the bodies were in an advanced state of decomposition and could not immediately be identified.
According to the papers, the bodies were found at Kaa-Essour, near the western Algiers suburb of Bab el-Oued.
An armed gang also slit the throat of a man as he stood with his family on Saturday in Marhoum in the south-west, a day after his wedding, the two dailies also reported.