Russian Priest and Islam Critic Shot to Death in Church -- Daniil Sysoyev

http://www.realcourage.org/2009/11/russian-priest-and-islam-critic-shot-to-death-in-church-daniil-sysoyev/

-- London Times: "Russian priest and Muslim critic, Daniil Sysoyev, assassinated in church"
-- London Times reports:
--- "A Russian Orthodox priest known for his outspoken criticism of Islam and attempts to convert Muslims to Christianity has been assassinated in his Moscow church."
--- "A masked gunman shot Father Daniil Sysoyev in the head and chest after asking for him by name, police said. The choirmaster, Vladimir Strelbinsky, was seriously wounded in the attack at St Thomas Church in southern Moscow."
--- "Father Daniil, 35, died of his wounds in hospital late last night. A Russian newspaper reported that he had recently told its journalists of 14 death threats by telephone and e-mail, which he had received as a result of his work among Muslim migrants from former Soviet republics."
--- " 'They've threatened to cut my head off 14 times,' the priest told Komsomolskaya Pravda, adding that the Federal Security Service had contacted him last year after uncovering a plot to murder him."
--- "He claimed to have christened 80 Muslims, 'among them Tatars, Uzbeks, Chechens and Dagestanis'. He said that other priests were unwilling to follow his lead because 'they are afraid of revenge from the Muslim world'."
--- "The co-chairman of the Council of Muftis of Russia, Nafigulla Ashirov, called Father Daniil a 'Russian Salman Rushdie' after he wrote a book in 2007 condemning Islam's treatment of women."

-- Reuters: "Russia: Masked gunman kills Russian priest at Moscow church"
-- Reuters: "A masked gunman entered a church and murdered a Russian Orthodox priest who had received death threats for converting Muslims to Christianity and criticizing Islam, prosecutors and church officials said Friday."
-- "The killing could threaten delicate relations between the powerful majority Russian Orthodox Church, which has close ties to the Kremlin, and the country's growing Muslim minority of about 20 million."
-- "The gunman approached priest Daniil Sysoyev, 34, in St Thomas Church in southern Moscow Thursday night, checked his name and then opened fire with a pistol, a spokesman for the investigating committee of the Prosecutor-General's office said."
-- " 'The main theory is that religious motives are behind the crime,' spokesman Anatoly Bagmet said."
-- "Sysoyev was from Tatarstan, a predominantly Muslim region of Russia on the Volga river. He was threatened after preaching to Muslims and Christians from other denominations."
-- " 'I have received 10 threats via e-mail that I shall have my head cut off (if I do not stop preaching to Muslims)," Sysoyev stated on a television program in February 2008, according to Interfax. 'As I see it, it is a sin not to preach to Muslims.' "

--- Reuters.com report currently omits much of this reporting

--- RIA report: "Russian Orthodox priest killed in Moscow"