A Roman Catholic Archbishop kidnapped two weeks ago in a gun battle in Iraq was found dead yesterday.

Monsignor Paolos Faraj Rahho, the 65-year-old head of the Chaldean Catholic Church in the northern city of Mosul, was seized following afternoon prayers on February 29.

The kidnappers surrounded his car and shot his two companions and driver. They subsequently placed a ransom of 1.5 million pounds on his head and demanded the release of several prisoners from Kurdish jails.

Police said that they found his body buried in a shallow grave in the Al-Intisar district to the north of the city. His corpse showed no sign of having been shot, said a source at the city’s morgue.

Pope Benedict XVI said the killing was an act of “inhuman violence” and that he would include Rahho in his prayers during the Via Crucis ceremony before Easter.

“This new atrocity deeply wounds the whole Church and the Chaldean Church in particular,” he added.

The Pope plans to ask President Bush for his help in protecting Iraq’s 700,000 Christians during a visit to Washington next month. Almost all are Chaldean Catholics, an Eastern branch of the church, loyal to Rome’s authority.

Christianity was introduced to Iraq by St. Thomas the Apostle in the first century AD. However, since the end of the war, the small community has been repeatedly targeted by Sunni Muslim extremists.

Three churches in Mosul were bombed in January while Father Ragheed Aziz Ganni, Rahho’s secretary, was murdered last June, together with three subdeacons. Rahho had spoken of the dangers in the last interview he gave before his death. Talking in February to Tempi, an Italian magazine, he said: “Iraqis want to seize the wealth of the Christians and want to empty Iraq of our presence.”

The auxiliary Archbishop of Baghdad, Shlemon Warduni, said the kidnappers had made contact to say that Rahho, who was on daily medication following a heart attack several years ago, had died due to ill health.

“They telephoned us to say they had buried him,” Mr. Warduni said, who added that they had also indicated the grave’s whereabouts.