08/03/2005

British worker shot dead in Afghanistan

A British man working in Afghanistan has been shot dead in the country's capital, Kabul.

Stephen MacQueen, 41, had worked for the Afghan government, as an advisor to the rural development minister. He was shot dead as he drove through the downtown area of Kabul late yesterday evening.

Police said that two vehicles, one of which was a black landcruiser, had followed Mr MacQueen's vehicle. They blocked his way on the road and someone in the landcruiser fired shots at Mr MacQueen before both vehicles escaped. The shooting happened close to both a United Nations workers' guesthouse and the Dutch embassy.

A motive for the killing has yet to be established.

It has been reported that Mr MacQueen was due to leave the country shortly to return to Britain.

The Foreign Office has confirmed the shooting and a spokesman said that his next of kin had been informed.

Whle the situation has been relatively calm in Kabul recently, however a number of foreigners have been killed in attacks in Afghanistan over the past seven months.

Last August, ten people were killed out side the office of an American security firm and in October an American woman was killed in a suicide bomb attack.

Three UN workers, including a woman from Northern Ireland, were also kidnapped late last year in Kabul, although they were all later released unharmed.

(KMcA/SP)

Related UK National News Stories
Click here for the latest headlines.

21 November 2005
Policewoman shot dead on daughter's birthday
The policewoman shot dead on Friday in Bradford was gunned down on her four-year-old daughter's birthday. Pc Sharon Beshenivsky, 38, was shot in the chest as she answered a call to a travel agents shop in Bradford. Her colleague PC Teresa Milburn, 37, was wounded in the shoulder.
27 July 2006
Civil trial granted over police shooting
The family of a man who was shot dead while naked and unarmed in his flat will be allowed to put the force on trial for unlawful killing.
15 August 2007
British Security Worker Shot Dead In Afghanistan
A British man working for a private security firm in Afghanistan has been killed, the Foreign Office has confirmed. The unnamed man is understood to have worked for ArmorGroup. He was shot dead in the Afghan capital Kabul on Wednesday. No further details have been released about the man.
10 November 2006
Man pleads guilty to stabbing student
A man who stabbed a student to death on a train has been sentenced to life imprisonment. Thomas Lee Wood, 22, from Skelmersdale in Lancashire admitted killing first-year student Thomas Grant, 19, from Glouestershire who had been attending St Andrews University.
29 July 2010
British Man's Spanish Stab Death Probed
A British man has been stabbed to death near the Spanish resort of Benalmádena. It was the first of two violent deaths in the area this week and has led to an English woman - named locally as Michelle Cornell - being arrested.