Dutch Clinton aid worker killed in Lesotho

MASERU, Nov 25 (Reuters) A Dutch aid worker with the Clinton Foundation was shot and killed last night outside the house of Lesotho's trade minister, police said today.

Police spokesman Pheello Mphana said the aid worker, whom he named as Samuella Jacobina Verwey, was shot by an unknown gunman or gunmen as she got out of a taxi with her husband and two other U.S. colleagues outside the gate of the minister's house.

Her husband and the two American Clinton Foundation workers were not injured, but the taxi driver, a local, was shot and was in a critical condition in hospital, Mphana said.

Mphana said 24 shells from an AK 47 had been recovered outside the minister's house.

''Investigations are still at an early stage, and we do not know what the motive (for the attack) was,'' he said.

Mphana said the incident happened at around 2100 GMT in the impoverished mountain kingdom's capital. Lesotho is an enclave enclosed entirely within South Africa's borders.

The group was residing in a house or houses on the minister's property, Mphana said, adding they were returning from an outing to a hotel in town when they were attacked.

The minister said he was at the property at the time of the shooting, but declined to comment on the incident.

''I am still in shock and cannot comment,'' Mpho Malie told Reuters.

Former US President Bill Clinton opened clinic Maseru in July last year, to help tackle HIV infection, and also provide life-prolonging antiretroviral (ARV) anti-AIDS drugs.

Lesotho has been promoting HIV testing, condom use and AIDS awareness, desperate to stop a disease that is devastating communities and farming across the country.

Reuters DH VP0216