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http://www.assistnews.net/Stories/2007/s07030098.htm

ASSIST News Service (ANS) - PO Box 609, Lake Forest, CA 92609-0609 USA
Visit our web site at: www.assistnews.net -- E-mail: danjuma1@aol.com

Thursday, March 15, 2007

Tanzania: Lutheran Pastor Shot Dead
Three Suspected Robbers Open Fire on Vicar’s Car

By Wolfgang Polzer
Special to ASSIST News Service

LUSHOTO (ANS) -- A Lutheran pastor has been shot dead in an attempted robbery in Tanzania.

Reverend Sosthenes Kibanga (58) of the Evangelical Lutheran Church's North Eastern Diocese was gunned down March 11 by three unidentified persons.
According to Tanzanian police Kibanga was driving with a companion from Mlalo to Lushoto in the Usambara Mountains.

Guga Elias, who accompanied the cleric, said they were crossing a forest, when they were forced to stop by logs placed in the middle of the road.

Three people, two of them masked, emerged from the forest and advanced towards the car. One of the gunmen fired two shots through the window that hit the pastor on the chest, killing him instantly.

According to local reports they took a mobile phone from the car. They ran away from the vehicle, when they realized that the pastor was dead. Police have mounted a full-scale hunt for the killers.

Kibanga, who was married, was buried March 13 in Lushoto. All Lutheran institutions in the town, including a school for handicapped children, were closed for a day of mourning.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania has 3.5 million members.

Wolfgang Polzer (56), is senior news editor of the Evangelical News Agency idea, Wetzlar (Germany), which he joined in 1981. In all, he has spent 30 years in Christian media. Wolfgang can be contacted by e-mail at: Wolfgang.Polzer@idea.de.
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