PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) – Armed men killed an anti-terrorism court judge and his family on Sunday while traveling from northwestern Pakistan’s Swat Valley to the capital Islamabad, police officer Shoaib Khan said.
No one took responsibility for the shooting, which also severely injured two of Judge Aftab Ahmed Afridi’s bodyguards.
Pakistan’s anti-terrorism courts have been set up to hear cases ranging from terrorist financing to the trial of perpetrators of insurgent attacks. Critics say Pakistan’s comprehensive anti-terrorism laws have also been used to silence critics of the country’s powerful military.
Afridi, his wife and two children – including a two-year-old son – were killed in the attack, Khan said.
Afridi had been assigned to the anti-terrorism courts in Swat two months earlier. Swat was once an area controlled by the Taliban and is where educational activist Malala Yousafzai was shot by the Taliban for defending the education of girls.
Pakistan’s military expelled the Taliban from the area in 2009.