An Iraqi human rights group is claiming that a 14 year-old boy was shot and killed in front of his home by Iraqi police for the apparent crime of being gay.

Ahmed Khalil was shot at point-blank range after being beaten by several men wearing Iraqi police uniforms in the al-Dura area of Baghdad, according to witnesses.

Gay-rights groups have complained about an increase in homosexual killings by state security services and religious militias following an anti-gay and anti-lesbian fatwa issued by Iraq's most prominent Shia leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

Ali Hili, the head an organization of exiled Iraqi gay men who monitor allegations of attacks on homosexuals inside Iraq, states that the fatwa had created a climate of violence against lesbian and gay Iraqis. They say the violence includes beatings, kidnappings and killings.

"Young Ahmed was a victim of poverty," he said. "He was summarily executed, apparently by fundamentalist elements in the Iraqi police."

A number of public gay murders by the Badr militia have terrified Iraq's gay community. Last September, Hayder Faiek, a transsexual, was burnt to death by the Badr militia in the main street of Baghdad's al-Karada district. In January, suspected militants shot another gay man in the back of the head, according to the Independent in Britain.

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