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Iraq interpreter's killing pits faith against law
The murder of a former interpreter for the United States military who allegedly abandoned his Muslim faith has revealed the strain facing Iraq's fragile laws, where a respect for Islamic creed can conflict with a duty to protect human rights.
Hameed al-Daraji was shot dead on Wednesday, June 14, in the Sunni Arab city of Samarra, north of Baghdad. According to security officials, his son confessed in custody that he had killed his father over his conversion to Christianity.
Another son and a nephew are wanted over the attack. All three men are suspected of links to a domestic insurgent group allied to al-Qaeda.
Hostility towards converts is widespread in Iraq, as in much of the Muslim world. While the country's laws guarantee the rights of its sizable religious minorities, they also yield to Islam as an ultimate authority.
Many Iraqis–including residents of Samarra and Baghdad and senior clerics from the Sunni and Shia sects–said the former interpreter deserved to be killed in accordance with strict Islamic rules against conversion.