A Christian construction worker held to ransom for $100,000 over the weekend has been killed by his kidnappers.

Ashur Issa Yaqub, a 29-year-old Chaldean Christian, was abducted by gunmen in the northern city of Kirkuk.

His abductors had demanded that his relatives pay $100,000 as a ransom for his release.

His body was found today in Kirkuk with signs of torture.

A source told the Aswat al-Iraq news agency that the abductors killed Yaqub when the ransom was not paid.

Kirkuk provincial police chief Major General Jamal Taher Bakr has blamed the killing on Al-Qaeda insurgents.

He was quoted by Agence France-Presse news agency as saying: “A police patrol found the body of the young Christian man. His head was almost completely cut off.”

Christians continue to endure hardship and discrimination in Iraq, where human rights organisations warn that Islamic extremists are trying to drive them out of the country.

Last October, 58 Christians were killed in the Our Lady of Salvation church in Baghdad by members of an al-Qaeda-linked militant group.