Another SA man killed in Iraq

By Graeme Hosken and Reuters

A former South African police task force member has been shot dead in a Baghdad supermarket just days after leaving South Africa.

The ex-policeman, who cannot be named until his next of kin have been informed of his death, had just returned to Baghdad.

He had been in South Africa for a week’s visit after his wife and infant child were hijacked near their Centurion home.

'This is a Jew, why do you deal with him and sell to him?'
The man, who worked for a South African security company, was shot dead in the Sunni Muslim district of Al-Adhamiyah in the capital on Thursday.

Sources who worked with the South African in Baghdad said on Thursday night that the man, who was killed when he was shot twice in the head and once in the back, had been sent to a butchery to buy meat for a farewell braai for another South African due to return home later this week.

“There was meant to be a get-together for all of us before our colleague returned home,” said a security personnel man who asked not to be named for fear of repercussions from the South African government.

The man – the fourth South African to be killed in Iraq since January – was working on a four-month contract as a bodyguard for the United States-led Coalition Provisional Authority.

The three other South Africans who have been killed in Iraq are Francois Strydom, Gray Branfield and Hendrik “Vis” Visagie, also a former task force member.

Witnesses said the man was shot in the head while shopping at a small supermarket in the Adha- miyah neighbourhood, a Sunni Muslim stronghold.

His translator was wounded and taken to a nearby hospital.

“A gunman came in and shot them both,” said Aslan Khalil, a worker at the shop where the incident took place.

“When the gunman came in, he told us ‘This is a Jew, why do you deal with him and sell to him?’ ”

The owner of the supermarket was wounded by a bullet in a leg.

Another witness, Aydan Khalil, said the gunman had a keffiyeh headdress wrapped round his face and used an assault rifle. Afterwards, he left the shop and tried to get into the victim’s four-wheel-drive vehicle across the street.

“He tried to smash a car window and then turned and said ‘I killed the Jew inside – you burn his car’.” The gunman then left in his own car, the witness said.

There are many South Africans working in Iraq, mostly employed by private security firms.

The Department of Foreign Affairs said arrangements were being made through the South African mission in Oman and the man’s employers to ensure that his remains were repatriated.

Meanwhile in Cape Town, Anglican Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane said the United States and Britain owed it to the world to admit they had embarked on a war with Iraq based on inaccurate information, as well as falsely alleging that the country posed an immediate threat to the world.

From: http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?
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