SUMMARY: A gay pogrom escalates in Baghdad as a boy who apparently slept with men to feed his impoverished family is pulled from his home and shot.
A 14-year-old boy has been shot by Iraqi police officers for the apparent crime of being gay, the Independent of London reported.
According to his neighbors in Baghdad's al-Dura district, Ahmed Khalil was shot at point-blank range after a scuffle with the police.
Ali Hili, an exiled gay Iraqi who is Middle East affairs spokesman for the London gay rights group OutRage! said, "According to a neighbor, who witnessed Ahmed's execution from his bedroom window, four uniformed police officers arrived at Ahmed's house in a four-wheel-drive police pick-up truck."
"The neighbor saw the police drag Ahmed out of the house and shoot him at point-blank range, pumping two bullets into his head and several more bullets into the rest of his body."
Hili claimed that Ahmed was a "victim of poverty" and apparently killed by "fundamentalist elements in the Iraqi police."
It is believed Ahmed slept with men for money to support his poverty-stricken family. They have since fled the area.
Hili is coordinator of a U.K. group consisting of more than 30 Iraqi gay exiles. They are in contact with an underground network of gay people in Baghdad and other cities.
Human rights groups have condemned the murder, which is part of a pattern of anti-gay killings in Iraq, rights groups say.
Rainbow for Life, an Iraqi gay group, has blamed the killing spree on the Badr Corps, the military arm of the Iranian-backed Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the country's most powerful Shiite Muslim group.
A Rainbow spokesman told IRIN, "We know for certain that those killed were targeted because of their sexual preferences."
Homosexuality is considered sinful in Islamic countries, but an anti-gay edict issued by the Shiite Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani in October has unleashed what amounts to a pogrom against gay men and lesbians, gay Iraqis say.
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