Pope prays for murdered envoy

2005-07-08 20:24

Vatican City - Pope Benedict XVI denounced the al-Qaeda murder of the top Egyptian envoy to Iraq as an "atrocious crime" and has told President Hosni Mubarak of his "deep pain", the Vatican said on Friday.

In a letter conveyed through the Egyptian embassy to the Holy See, the Vatican secretary of state Cardinal Angelo Sodano said the pope "desires to express his extreme pain and the assurance of his prayers to the president of the Egyptian republic, to his government and to all the noble and peace-loving Egyptian people".

Egypt confirmed on Thursday that diplomat Ihab al-Sharif had been murdered by an al-Qaeda group headed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, five days after he ws abducted in Baghdad.

Sodano said that throughout history, the person of an ambassador has been regarded as sacred because of his mission aimed at assuring peace, harmony and fraternity among peoples.

"This barbaric crime has taken place in the world context of persistent terrorism, contrary to every human and religious sentiment," Sodano added.

Wrath of God

In Cairo, Egypt's Sunni Muslim spiritual leader Sheikh Ali Gomaa warned the killers of top envoy Ihab al-Sharif on Friday that they face the "wrath of God".

Sharif's murderers were "thugs" who had "issued a declaration of war and who now face the wrath of God, who will strike them down", the mufti told the faithful at the main weekly Muslim prayers.

"It is people like that that God and his prophet commanded us to fight and kill," he said in a sermon broadcast live on state television.

Egyptian authorities confirmed on Thursday that Sharif, a 51-year-old father of two, had been murdered by his kidnappers after loyalists of al-Qaeda's Iraq frontman Abu Musab al-Zarqawi posted an Internet statement announcing his killing.

- AFP