BAGHDAD, May 27 (UPI) -- The Iraqi in charge of keeping former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party out of government was assassinated, Interior Ministry officials said.
Ali Lami, executive director of Iraq's Accountability and Justice Commission, was shot Thursday evening, the officials told the Los Angeles Times.
Lami was shot in the head in the Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City by an assassin using a silencer-equipped weapon.
"My No. 1 suspect would be the Baath Party, which is basically infiltrating a huge amount of the security apparatus in Iraq," said Entifadh Qanbar, an adviser to Ahmad Chalabi, the head of the committee that Lami helped operate. "I think this will shake the government. This shows there is a big mole in the security system."
CNN reported that Lami's driver escaped the incident unharmed.
At least 70 people have been executed in the past year, the reports said, as Iraq works to rebuild its government.
Elsewhere in Baghdad Thursday, two Iraqi soldiers were killed and 12 others wounded in a roadside bomb explosion that hit an army patrol on the city's western outskirts.
In eastern Baghdad, gunmen shot and killed Lt. Col. Khalid Mohammed, an official with the Interior Ministry.
