LOS ANGELES, June 29 (CDN) — Funeral services will be held tomorrow for a U.S. teacher in Mauritania who was shot dead last week by Islamic extremists for spreading Christianity.
 
Christopher Leggett, 39, was killed Tuesday morning (June 23) in front of the language and computer school he operated in Nouakchott, the capital city.
 
Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, North African unit of the al-Qaeda terrorist network, claimed responsibility for the murder on an Internet site, accusing Leggett of “missionary activities.” A North African al-Qaeda spokesman aired a statement on an Arab TV station saying the group killed Leggett because he was allegedly trying to convert Muslims to Christianity.
 
Advocacy organization Middle East Concern reported that Leggett “resisted what appeared to be an attempt to kidnap him and was then shot in the head several times by his two assailants.”
 
His family issued a statement today saying they forgave the murderers but asked that they be caught and prosecuted.
 
“In a spirit of love, we express our forgiveness for those who took away the life of our remarkable son,” the family said in the statement, distributed in English, French and Arabic.
 
“Chris had a deep love for Mauritania and its people, a love that we share. Despite this terrible event, we harbor no ill will for the Mauritanian people. On a spiritual level, we forgive those responsible, asking only that justice be applied against those who killed our son.”
 
Mauritania’s minister of justice reportedly said that Leggett’s death “was a great loss to Mauritania.” Leggett, his wife and four children lived for seven years in Mauritania, where he directed an aid agency that provided training in computer skills, sewing and literacy, and he also ran a micro-finance program, according to the Cleveland Daily Banner.
 
Mauritania’s National Foundation for the Defence of Democracy (FNDD) called for the killers to be brought to justice.
 
“This hateful crime, which was committed in broad daylight close to the market in El Ksar, one of the busiest in Nouakchott, once again raises the issue of instability and terrorism, which is often used by the military authorities to justify all sorts of unnatural situations,” the FNDD the statement read.
 

The Associated Press reported that Mauritania’s Interior Ministry said it was investigating the murder and that security forces were searching for the killers.
 
The AP reported that Leggett, who grew up in Cleveland, Tenn., taught at a center specializing in computer science and languages in El Kasr, a lower-class neighborhood in Nouakchott. The Rev. Jim Gibson, co-pastor of First Baptist Church of Cleveland, told the news service that Leggett visited the congregation when he traveled back to the United States but worked independently in Mauritania.
 
The Cleveland Daily Banner reported that Leggett was a 1987 graduate of Cleveland High School, attended Cleveland State Community College and graduated from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in 1990 with a degree in Business Administration. He was a member of First Baptist Church of Cleveland for many years and most recently was a member of Michigan Avenue Baptist Church of Cleveland.
 
His funeral is scheduled for Tuesday 2009 at the First Baptist Church of Cleveland at 2 p.m.

Memorials to the family can be made at www.clevelandfbc.com, or sent to Jackie B. Leggett at 1112 Glenmore Drive, Cleveland, TN 37312 or through First Baptist Church of Cleveland, 340 Church Street, Cleveland, TN 37311 and designated to the J. Mack Hall Fund. Messages of condolence may be given at www.ralphbuckner.com.
 
The last known activity of al-Qaeda in Mauritania occurred in December 2007, when gunmen believed to be linked to al-Qaeda’s North Africa branch killed four French tourists picnicking near Aleg, east of Nouakchott.
 
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