Gunmen Kill Two Prominent Judges in Iraq

[papau]

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=3750277&fromEmail=true

Gunmen Kill Two Prominent Judges in Iraq
Tue November 4, 2003 07:44 AM ET

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) - Gunmen shot dead a prominent Iraqi judge outside his home in the northern city of Mosul on Tuesday, a day after another judge was kidnapped and killed in the south of the country, police said.

A witness said a car with tinted windows suddenly pulled up outside the home of Ismail Youssef, a judge in Mosul's appeals court, at about 7:45 a.m. (12:45 a.m. EST) and men got out and shot him several times in the chest and side, police said.

The 60-year-old judge's family said they did not know why he had been attacked. Some judges with links to ousted president Saddam Hussein's Baath party were fired after the U.S.-led war, but Youssef remained on the judge's bench. <snip>

On Monday, a senior judge in the southern city of Najaf was kidnapped and killed by what his deputy said were gunmen carrying out the orders of Saddam. <snip>