There are strong suspicions that Mr Vincent, who received numerous death threats, was murdered in an attempt to silence him.
Four days before his death he had written an opinion piece in The New York Times in which he said that the police force in the British-controlled city had been heavily infiltrated by Shia Muslim extremist militias, who were responsible for carrying out hundreds of murders of prominent Sunni Muslims.
Vincent was aware that his writing put him in danger. On July 9, he flagged up on his blog an article that he had written for the Christian Science Monitor about the religious parties who he said now dominated Basra. He wrote: "When you read this, keep in mind that for various reasons - not the least of which were safety concerns - the piece only scratches the surface of what is happening here."
Well, it was only a matter of time before bloggers started getting treated like the rest of the media. Let this be a lesson to you bloggers out there.
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