By Libya Herald staff.
Benghazi, 16 June 2013:
A senior judge was gunned down outside the Derna courthouse today in a drive-by shooting.
Judge Mohammed Najib Mohammed Huwaidi was killed outright . . .[restrict]in the attack. The chairman of the Court of Cassation in Green Mountain province, Judge Abdel-Aziz Mustafa Al-Trabulsi confirmed his colleague’s death to the Libyan news agency LANA.
This is but the latest in a series of threats and assaults against the judiciary in Derna.
Last December the courts in the town suspended their work in protest at the poor security situation and threats made against members of the judiciary. Speaking at the time, Trabulsi said that judges and officials would not return to their duties until improvements had been made in security arrangements, both for their buildings and court employees.
Those improvements clearly did not however prevent today’s murder. Moreover in March the front of the lower court building in the town was extensively damaged by a bomb blast in the middle of the night. No one was injured in this attack.
Then, the following month, Trabulsi himself was the victim of a car-jacking, when his vehicle was seized after he had been forced out of it at gunpoint, not far from his home. This attack, however, was put down to common criminals rather than terrorists. [/restrict]
