A judicial source said that Zakaria Abd El-Aziz Osman has been appointed as Egypt’s acting prosecutor-general, following the assassination of the country’s top prosecutor Hisham Barakat earlier on Monday, the Ahram Arabic news website has reported.

Abd El-Aziz, who was a judge at the Cairo Court of Appeal, had served as assistant prosecutor-general since April.

He will now assume the duties of the prosecutor-general until the appointment of a new prosecutor-general.

Prosecutor-general Hisham Barakat was killed in a bomb attack on his convoy in Cairo earlier on Monday.