Gunmen kill 2 Somali officials
2009-11-12 09:02
Mogadishu - Gunmen shot and killed two Somali officials in the breakaway state of Puntland on Wednesday, police and witnesses said.
Mohamed Abdi Aware, a Supreme Court judge in Puntland was gunned down in the region's commercial capital Bossaso while lawmaker Ibrahim Elmi Gab was killed minutes later in the administrative capital Garowe.
"Aware was killed by unidentified gunmen when he left a mosque in the town after performing his evening prayers," Colonel Mohamed Warsameh, a Bossaso police officer said.
"I saw hooded gunmen shoot him in the head and chest, I could not look at the cruel act, the assailants escaped the scene quickly," Abdurahman Abdalla, a witness said.
In a separate incident gunmen killed Ibrahim Elmi Gab, a long-serving Puntland lawmaker as he left a tea shop.
"The MP left friends at a tea shop when gunmen opened fire on him, he died and the police are still investigating the incident," Ahmed Moalim Nur, police officer in Garowe said.
"The killing took place an hour after we got information that the supreme court judge was assassinated in Bossaso but we are not yet sure if the two incidents are related," he added.
The semi-autonomous region in northeastern Somalia has enjoyed relative calm as a civil war has reignited in the rest of the lawless country, but there have been explosions and other attacks in recent months.
- SAPA