Summary:

ISTANBUL, June 5 (Compass Direct News) - Iraq's Chaldean community yesterday mourned the deaths of a priest and three deacons shot on Sunday night (June 3) by unknown assailants in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. Father Ragheed Ganni was leaving his Holy Spirit parish at 6:40 p.m. with three deacons when armed men stopped him and pulled him from his car, a source in the Mosul archbishopric said. The attackers gunned down the four Christians, shooting Ganni approximately 15 times before driving away in the priest's car. Members of the Holy Spirit parish, located in eastern Mosul, waited until 10 p.m. to collect the bodies from the street for fear they would be attacked, the source said. Ganni's death is the first known killing of a Chaldean clergyman in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. "You cannot imagine what the bodies looked like," a priest who photographed the corpses told Compass.

**********

Assailants Gun Down Priest, Deacons

Murder is first known killing of Chaldean clergyman since fall of Saddam Hussein.

by Peter Lamprecht

ISTANBUL, June 5 (Compass Direct News) - Iraq's Chaldean community yesterday mourned the deaths of a priest and three deacons shot on Sunday night (June 3) by unknown assailants in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.

Father Ragheed Ganni was leaving his Holy Spirit parish at 6:40 p.m. with three deacons when armed men stopped him and pulled him from his car, a source in the Mosul archbishopric said.

The source said that the attackers gunned down the four Christians, shooting Ganni approximately 15 times before driving away in the priest's car. Members of the Holy Spirit parish, located in eastern Mosul, waited until 10 p.m. to collect the bodies from the street for fear they would be attacked, the source said.

"You cannot imagine what the bodies looked like," a priest who photographed the corpses told Compass.

Ganni's death is the first known killing of a Chaldean clergyman in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

"Why my son, what mistake did he make to be killed?" the priest's father asked, according to those who attended Ganni's funeral. "He liked his church, he loved his people and everyone loved him."

Ganni and other Mosul clergy had been threatened in the past, but the motives for the priest's murder remain unclear, a source in the archbishopric told Compass.

"We don't know who and we don't know why," the source said.

"Everyone gets threats," one priest commented, noting the anti-Christian attitudes of Mosul's predominantly Sunni population.

According to Catholic news agency Asia News, Ganni's church faced previous harassment, suffering a bomb attack on May 27.

"We are on the verge of collapse," Ganni wrote in a May 28 e-mail to Asia News.

The archbishopric identified the three murdered deacons as Basman Yusef, Waheed Isho and Ghasan Bidawid. Both Yusef and Bidawid were in their mid-20s and unmarried, while Isho, in his late 30s, left behind a wife and four children, the archbishopric said.

"It was really a shock to her," one priest who attended the funeral told Compass when asked about Isho's widow. "I don't know how she can live with this."

Delayed Returning to Rome

The four men were buried in the town of Karameles, a Chaldean Christian village 30 kilometers (19 miles) east of Mosul yesterday. Mosul Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho celebrated the funeral mass, held at 3 p.m. in the Mar Addai church.

Many high level clergy attended the funeral, including Patriarch Emmanuel III Delly, head of the Chaldean church. Delly called on the Iraqi government to take notice of the plight of its Christian minority, which has faced increasing attacks and harassment in recent months.

Also in attendance was Sarkis Aghajan, a member of Iraq's historical Christian community and finance minister for the Kurdish regional government.

In a telegram sent to Archbishop Rahho yesterday, Pope Benedict XVI expressed his condolences to the families of the deceased and said he hoped their costly sacrifice would inspire men and women to reject evil and violence, "hastening the dawn of reconciliation, justice and peace in Iraq."

Having worked in Mosul, the city of his birth, since 2003 after graduating from seminary in Rome, Ghanni was known for his willingness to sacrifice for his congregation.

According to Iraqi Christian website Baghdadhope, Ganni delayed returning to Rome for further studies last year in order to remain with his congregation in Mosul.

"He was the right-hand man to the bishop [Mosul archbishop Rahho]," one priest said. "For the bishop, he was like his son."

Chaldean Patriarch Delly yesterday called on Iraqi leaders to intervene and end the "persecution of Iraqi Christians, their forced emigration, and their being pushed to deny their faith," according to Zenit news agency.

A source in Mosul's archbishopric told Compass that emigration has caused attendance at Ganni's former parish to drop 70 percent in the last three years. Church leaders fear that if killings such as that of Ganni continue, soon no one will remain.

"Kill the priest, and it will kill the community," one priest told Compass from northern Iraq this morning.

In October 2006, a Syrian Orthodox priest from Mosul was kidnapped and dismembered, reportedly in retaliation for a controversial speech made by Pope Benedict XVI at the University of Regensburg that some believed insulted Islam. Ganni's church also came under attack in the weeks following the pope's Regensburg address.

An eastern rite church in communion with Rome, the Chaldean Church is Iraq's largest Christian community.

Christians made up 3 percent of Iraq's population before the toppling of Hussein in 2003, but hundreds of thousands of Christians have since fled their homes amid the anarchic violence throughout much of the country.