Iraqi judge kidnapped

2006-05-25 14:20

Baghdad - Gunmen kidnapped a judge from the town, where ex-president Saddam Hussein was accused of having massacred nearly 150 Shi'ite villagers in the 1980s, said officials on Thursday.

An interior ministry source said that Dujail judge Walid Ahmed was travelling on a highway between Saddam's hometown of Tikrit and the city of Samarra when he was abducted from his car on Wednesday.

Saddam and seven co-defendants were facing charges of crimes against humanity and could face the death penalty if found guilty of ordering the Dujail killings.

Six bodies found

The Iraqi tribunal was hearing defence witnesses in the case, but there was no indication that the kidnapping was connected to trial proceedings.

Two Iranian truck drivers shipping propane were also kidnapped in separate incidents, northeast of Baghdad, on Thursday.

Meanwhile, authorities discovered the bodies of six people believed to have been killed in sectarian revenge murders that had swept Iraq since the beginning of the year.

An interior ministry source said that four bodies were found in Baghdad and two others were found in the restive city of Baquba.

Three civilians wounded

Eight Iraqis were injured in a spate of attacks in Baghdad, including a defence ministry official who was shot as he travelled to work in a car.

The sources said that general Khalil al-Aybadi was in Baghdad's southern Safaraniyah neighbourhood when gunmen ambushed his car.

In other parts of the capital, three civilians were wounded after two bombs exploded on the central Tahrir Square, sending a thick white cloud drifting over Tigris River.

An interior ministry official said that at least one of the explosions took place inside a building on Tahrir Square.

And on one of Baghdad's main throughways, Palestine Street, a roadside bomb targeting a police patrol injured two police officers. Two other officers were hurt in a bomb attack in the al-Jedidah area.

- AFP