Mosul, Jun. 4, 2007 (CWNews.com) - A Chaldean Catholic priest and three deacons were gunned down in Mosul, Iraq, on Sunday, the AsiaNews service reports.
Father Ragheed Ganni and three deacons from his parish-- Basman Yousef Daud, Wahid Hanna Isho, Gassan Isam Bidawed-- were killed after celebrating the Eucharistic liturgy on Sunday.
As they left the church, the clerics’ car was stopped by a group of armed gunmen, who shot all 4 men and then rigged their car with explosives so that no one would dare remove their bodies. The car with the four murdered me remained in the city street, bearing witness to the killings, for several hours until a police bomb-squad defused the devices.
The parish where they served, the Church of the Holy Spirit, had been bombed and vandalized in the past, and Father Ganni had been threatened by Islamic militants, AsiaNews reports. The three deacons had been accompanying the priest constantly, hoping to protect him.
Chaldean Patriarch Emmanuel III Delly referred to the attack as “a crime against God.”
Christians in Iraq have been the objects of a nationwide campaign of intimidation, forcing tens of thousands of members of the Christian minority to leave Iraq for safety in neighboring lands.