Like many of Baghdad's fiery Sunni clerics, Sheikh Omar Ibrahim al Duleimi was never afraid to stir things up at Friday prayers. When he urged his congregation to rise up and fight the American occupation, United States troops would routinely haul him in for questioning.When he urged his congregation to register to vote in elections, the threat came from his compatriots - insurgents, who sent him warning messages that he ignored.
The sheikh has now paid the ultimate price for his defiance. Two hours before he was due to be interviewed by The Sunday Telegraph, armed men stormed his home in Baghdad and kidnapped him. His body was found in the capital yesterday with a single gunshot wound to the head.
The reason for his death was the subject he was about to discuss - his declaration that democracy, not the gun, is the best way forward for Iraq's Sunnis. Qassim al Janaabi, his assistant, said: "In the last two weeks he had been saying in prayers that all Iraqis should vote. He said if we get a government, president and constitution, the Americans will have no reason to stay. "Some groups sent messages to him saying, 'Don't be a traitor, if you carry on doing this you will die.' But he didn't care - he insisted that he would carry on with this subject. Then two cars full of men came and took him away."
Sheikh Omar, a former secondary school English teacher, was among a growing number of pro-insurgent Sunni clerics who had come to believe that the decision to boycott last January's elections was a disaster. It is a divisive issue among hardliners, with those who still reject the political process turning their guns on those who support it.
According to the Association of Muslim Scholars, a hardline Sunni organisation with ties to the insurgents, at least 23 Sunni clerics have been killed in recent weeks for espousing democracy. The issue has taken on added urgency with the protracted wranglings over Iraq's constitution, in which Sunnis have been able to play only a small role thanks to their minimal representation on the national assembly.
In what appeared to be another attempt to mollify Sunnis, the US military said that it had released almost 1,000 prisoners from Abu Ghraib in recent days. Yet even as they regained their freedom, Sheikh Omar was about to lose his life. His son, Hatem, 22, and his six-year-old sister, Sara, witnessed his abduction.
"At 2pm the door knocked and my little sister opened it," Hatem said. "Someone was asking for my father. My sister left the door open and then three masked men entered the house and put their rifles into our faces. They said, 'We want to take your father, he's a traitor.' His last words to us were, 'Stay here, I will be back. Let them take me and I will be back' ."
The family never had much hope of seeing him again. "The Mujahideen we spoke to said they didn't know anything about it," Hatem said. "We think these were people from al-Qaeda in Iraq." He still believes that his father was right. "The election is a new weapon we can use against the occupation," he said. "But these extremists refuse any kind of election. They are not Mujahideen, they are just terrorists."
The split among Sunnis over voting will come to a head in the referendum. Further elections for the country's first fully sovereign government are due in December.