Top Iraqi judge's son killed by gunmen

Gunmen killed the son of Iraq’s top judge along with two of his bodyguards and dumped their bodies in one of Baghdad’s Sunni Arab neighbourhoods, officials said today.

Police found the bodies of Ahmed Midhat al-Mahmoud, 22, a lawyer, and two of his bodyguards in northern Baghdad’s Azamiyah district, said Hasan Sabri the head of the local council.

“Three corpses were found in Azamiyah and the police identified one of them belong to the son of al-Mahmoud and the two others to his bodyguards, all of them dumped in the street,” Sabri said.

The killing came five months after the judge, Midhat al-Mahmoud, survived a December 4 suicide bomb attack against his home. Two people were injured in the attack. The family is Shiite.

Al-Mahmoud’s father heads the Supreme Judicial Council, a judicial supervisory body which among other things swears in all judges and parliament.

The killings were the latest carried out against government officials or their families. It could also be part of a series of killings carried out by death squads and militias, who have kidnapped and killed hundreds of Sunni Arabs and Shiites – often motivated by sectarian hatred.