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From
Lebanese Forces Official Website Regional News
Chaldean Catholic archbishop kidnapped in Iraq last month has been found dead, Italian bishops' conference news agency says.
Gunmen kidnapped the Chaldean Catholic archbishop of Mosul on Friday, February 29 2008 in the northern Iraqi city and killed his driver and two guards.
Chaldeans belong to a branch of the Roman Catholic Church that practices an ancient Eastern rite. Most of its members are in Iraq and Syria, and they form the biggest Christian community in Iraq.
A number of Christian clergy have been kidnapped or killed, and churches bombed in Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.
Last June, gunmen killed Catholic priest Ragheed Aziz Kani and three assistants in Mosul, 240 miles north of Baghdad, after stopping his car near a church in the eastern part of the ethnically and religiously mixed city. The assailants dragged out the priest and his assistants and shot them dead in an attack that was condemned by Pope Benedict.
A former Archbishop of Mosul, Basile Georges Casmoussa, was kidnapped at gunpoint in 2005, but was released after one day of captivity and said no ransom was paid. © Copyright 2008 by Lebanese Forces Official Website |
