Mosul, June 22 (Reuters): Suspected assassins killed a university lecturer and her husband in the latest attacks on prominent Iraqis in the northern city of Mosul, police said today.

Relatives said Layla Abdullah Saad, the dean of the college of law at Mosul University, had received threats but had refused to hire security guards to protect her house where she was shot and stabbed to death on her doorstep.

Residents said the murders — which followed the killing of a lecturer from the same university in January — appeared to fit a pattern of attacks designed to intimidate voices of moderate opinion in Iraq’s third-largest city, scene of repeated car bombings and drive-by shootings. A pool of blood stained a small flight of steps leading to one of the front entrances to the two-storey house, marking the spot where Saad was killed, police said.

“She received a couple of threats. Some people advised her to hire guards to protect that house, but she wouldn’t listen,” said one of Saad’s relatives, who declined to be named.

The body of her husband, Moneer al-Khero, lay in a bedroom in the house in the affluent Aldanadan neighbourhood in southern Mosul. Police said he had been shot three times during the attack, which bore the hallmarks of a professional killing. Initial investigation showed the killers had left cash in the house untouched, while avoiding leaving obvious clues as to their possible identity.

“It is a big conspiracy, to kill all the qualified and highly educated people, in order to horrify others so they will not lead government institutions,” said Jamal Ahmed, 30, a driver employed by the university. He was among a small crowd of colleagues and neighbours gathered outside the house, waiting for police to bring out the bodies for burial, while patrol cars sealed off the street.