JEDDAH, 26 May — A retired judge who lived in Qareeh in the Taif region was reportedly shot dead by an unidentified assailant, press reports said yesterday. The body of Majry Mubarak Al-Aklaby, 50, was found buried in a remote place eight days after he had gone missing, Al-Watan Arabic daily said.
Security officers mounted a search for Al-Aklaby after he was reported missing by his family several days ago. Investigators, who combed the area using Civil Defense choppers, found his car abandoned in a city suburb. They recovered his ID and SR10,000 in cash from the car.
Police later arrested a suspect who admitted to taking the former judge to a remote area and shooting him dead, Al-Watan said. It did not identify the killer, but gave his age as 49.
The alleged killer told the police that after the murder, he removed Al-Aklaby’s clothes and buried him in the area which is difficult to reach.
Police exhumed the body last Wednesday and shifted it to the mortuary of King Faisal Hospital in Taif. According to Al-Watan, the murder took place on May 16.
“Majry was a good lawyer. I strongly doubt that some gangsters might have plotted to finish him off by hiring the killer,” the paper quoted Al-Aklaby’s brother Saeed, a teacher at a scientific institute in Bisha, as saying. He said his brother was a nice person and had no enemies.
Born in Bisha, Al-Aklaby graduated from the College of Shariah in Abha. He worked as a judge in Bisha, Mekhwat and Mudhleef before his retirement from public service in 1996.
