Targets

Some quotes from the brother of a Shiite Iraqi-Canadian who had returned to Baghdad to aid in the rebuilding of his home country. He was kidnapped, held for ransom, and then executed before the ransom could be paid.


His brother said Zaid, a Shia Muslim trader who married in Baghdad earlier this year, was targeted because he is a Canadian who was helping transform Iraq into a stable democracy. Zaid was murdered "because he is Canadian. That is a crime, to be Canadian," he said. "You have lots of money and it's a crime -- it means you are helping the foreign people against Saddam's people."

"It's political," Munir Meerwali said of his brother's killing. "It's just because they don't want Iraq to be again a democratic country. They don't want anybody to come and help the country.

"They lost their places and their political places in Iraq. All the regime, what they are doing, they try to kidnap the people, kill the people to make everybody leave the country."