UNITED NATIONS, July 19 (UPI) -- U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has expressed shock at the assassination of a Sunni member of the commission writing Iraq's new constitution.
"The secretary-general has learned with shock and dismay of the assassination of Mijbil Sheikh al-Issa, a member of the Constitutional Drafting Commission of the Transitional National Assembly of Iraq," said a statement issued Tuesday by a spokeswoman at U.N. World Headquarters in New York, Marie Okabe.
"The secretary-general strongly condemns this criminal act and hopes that it will not deter the Constitutional Commission from completing its important task on time," she said.
"The secretary-general notes that Issa was one of the 15 Sunni representatives who had recently joined the commission with the purpose of drafting a new constitution through an inclusive process that is responsive to the needs of all Iraqi constituencies," the statement said.
Al-Issa was gunned down along with an adviser to the commission, Dahmen al-Jabour.
