Finnish businessmen killed in Baghdad

Two Finnish businessmen were shot dead in their car as it drove through a tunnel in Baghdad yesterday, Finland's Foreign Ministry and witnesses said.

The Foreign Ministry said the two, part of a technology and industry group lobbying for business contracts in Iraq, were killed at around 0900 GMT. Finnish broadcaster YLE said they were on their way to a meeting at the Ministry of Electricity.

Eyewitness Abdul Jabar Mohammad said the car was attacked by gunmen as it drove through a tunnel.

"The car then stopped, and people came and smashed the windows and took out the two foreigners, whose bodies were spattered with blood," he said. "They put them in an ambulance and drove away."

They were the first Finnish citizens to be killed in Iraq. "My first feeling is that this was random. I can't see any purpose in this shooting," Finland's Ambassador to Syria Antti Koistinen told Reuters. "They were old hands in Iraq. Our businessmen have been going on a fairly regular basis."