Baghdad, July 12 (IANS/AKI) The body of an Iraqi Christian has been found inside a truck he was driving when he was abducted near Baghdad.
Assyrian Christian news agency AINA said the body was found in al-Tarmiyah area in the north of Baghdad. The man was abducted May 27.
Police said they believed the body was that of Salem Dawood Coca, from Betnaya in the multi-ethnic northern Nineveh province.
The man was killed when he refused to carry out a suicide bombing, as the truck was rigged with explosives, police said.
The kidnappers contacted Coca's family but did not demand a ransom, and called him a "Christian infidel", the report said.
Thousands of Iraqi Christians have fled the country amid sectarian violence that has flared since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.
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There are only an estimated 330,000 to 350,000 Christians left in Iraq, compared to around 1.2 million in the early 1990s.
--IANS/AKI
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