By Libya Herald reporters.
Benghazi, 13 November 2016:
The head of Soloug’s passport department died late this afternoon in a hail of gunfire when gunmen shot him as he was leaving his office.
Eye witnesses said that Abdel Halim Sherif was attacked by gunmen in a black Nissan Maxima outside his workplace near the Al-Jouda Alfaika flour company. Sherif was a major in the interior ministry’s immigration department.
It was initially suggested that this was a politically motivated assassination. The Libya Herald has been told that the murdered man’s brother is journalist Malik Sherif, who heads the information office of army chief-of-staff and Cyrenaica military governor Major-General Abdul Razzak Al-Nazhuri.
However, officials are now claiming that it was a criminal case, that the slaying followed an argument with a member of the public in the passport office and that a suspect has been arrested.
It is not yet clear which is the case.
The murder in the town, 54 kilometres south of Benghazi, is reminiscent of the spate of 2012/13 killings of officials that finally triggered Operation Dignity.