Gunmen kill top Pakistan court official

[maddezmom]

Source: AFP

ISLAMABAD (AFP) - Unidentified gunmen killed a senior Supreme Court official in Islamabad early Monday after a weekend of deadly violence over the suspension of Pakistan's top judge, police said.

Syed Hamid Raza was shot dead hours before the court was due to start a hearing into the legality of charges against Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry.

"Unknown gunmen broke into the house of Supreme Court additional registrar Raza and shot him dead," Islamabad police officer Mohammad Aslam told AFP.

Police were still investigating the motive for the killing, he said.

The shooting follows a weekend of bloodshed in the southern city of Karachi, in which nearly 40 people were killed, after pro-government activists stopped a rally by the sacked judge.



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070514/ts_afp/pakistanjusticeprotestattack_070514060820

[maddezmom]

1. Witness for Pakistan's suspended judge shot dead

ISLAMABAD, May 14 (Reuters) - Gunmen shot dead on Monday a Supreme Court official, regarded as a key witness by the legal team representing Pakistan's suspended chief justice in his fight against a move by President Pervez Musharraf to sack him.

Syed Hammad Raza, an additional registrar of the Supreme Court, was shot at point-blank range by two or three gunmen just before dawn at his home in the capital, Islamabad, police and relatives said.

"He was an important person in our case," Munir Ahmed Malik, a lawyer on suspended Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry's legal team, told Reuters.

Chaudhry has been at the centre of a judicial and political crisis since President Pervez Musharraf moved to sack him two months ago over undisclosed allegations of misconduct.
more:
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/SP41270.htm

[Eugene]

2. self-delete

duplicate of reply #1

[ohio2007]

3. Unidentified gunmen ? the ISI should be able to positively ID

the "gunmen"