Lebanese judge's car sabotaged

Beirut: Unknown assailants threw a hand grenade under the car of a senior Lebanese judge residing in the mountains east of Beirut, causing some material damage, a security official said yesterday.

The assailants appear to have thrown the bomb from a speeding car shortly after midnight on Friday, targeting one of three cars used by Judge Salah Mokheiber that was parked in the garage of his residence in Beit Meri, a mountain town east of Beirut.

The car and several others parked in the garage were damaged, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to give statements to the press.

No one was in the vehicles at the time of the incident.

Mokheiber is a senior judge at Lebanon's Appeals Courts, but the motive for the attack was not immediately clear. Police officials said they were investigating the incident.