A GLASGOW student, who had just returned to Iraq, has been shot dead in a brutal slaying by gunmen who also killed his father and seven bodyguards.

Friends of post-graduate law student Mohammed Al Janabi, who was brutally slain in Iraq on Friday night, tried to persuade him to change his plans or stay in Britain for his own safety, before he left the UK a week ago.

Mohammed, 29 had been due to return to receive his PhD from Glasgow Caledonian University in June.

Instead, friends organised a memorial service for him in Glasgow last night (SUN) after hearing of his death along with his father Sunni tribal leader Sheikh Qassem Sweidan Al Janabi, after they were captured in an ambush by unidentified gunmen. The attack has stoked sectarian tensions in the country.

Friends in Glasgow and in London had all attempted to convince the law student to choose a safer country than Iraq to live in, to stay in the UK and even to consider claiming asylum.

However he chose to return to Baghdad out of loyalty to his father, a sense of duty to local people and a desire to make a difference, they said.

His friend Abdul Rahman Al Adhami, who has known Mohammed since he moved to Glasgow in 2008, said his death was a tragedy and a shock to the local muslim and Arab community.

"His was a vibrant, peace loving life. It is always the wrong people who die," he said.

"This is totally unexpected and hundreds of people in the city knew him in some capacity, as friends and through the academic, muslim and Arab communities.

"People told him to say here, perhaps claim asylum. But his idea was always to get his education and use that to help represent people who really don't have a voice. A lot of people come here and do their studies and go away, without making any impact. He was a different character."

Mr Al Adhami was one of the organisers of the memorial service at Glasgow's Grand Central Mosque last night to remember the young Iraqi, who spent four years in the city studying commercial and property law.

He had only left the UK on Monday, flying to Baghdad from the house of Iraq-born novelist and activist Haifa Zangana, who helped him with his original applications to UK universities. He had been staying with her and her husband in London, and they too had discussed whether he should return home, she said.

"He had been due to fly to Amman, Jordan, where he had been an undergraduate. At the last minute he changed his mind to go back to Baghdad, which cost about $500 more. We were joking that he would be better spending the money on himself and staying," she said.

They knew it would also be safer to stay in the UK or live in Amman: "He was determined to go back and help some of the 1.9m people who have been displaced in Iraq. It is a dark time there, but he was full of energy and it gave us hope. He said 'I'm going to be doing this and doing that', and we thought - 'how fantastic'.

"It made us feel guilty being here and not there. He would have done a lot of things. We are shattered. Where is this cycle of killing going to end? A whole family has been killed, and nobody will be held responsible."

The deaths were the kind of injustice that fuels terrorism, she said. "When there is no law, what happens? People will take the law into their own hands."

Al Janabi's father was working to negotiate better treatment for local people and a secure place for displaced Sunnis to live, she said. Mohammed had intended to help with that work, having successfully defended his PhD, and was to return to Glasgow to graduate in June. "He told us to put the date in our diary and we said we wouldn't miss it for the world."

He was unmarried, she said. "He was such a handsome guy and tall for an Iraqi, with a beautiful smile. You would think girls would be throwing themselves at him, but he just wanted to finish his studies and didn't want to stay anywhere in the world, but Iraq."

A spokeswoman for Glasgow Caledonian University said staff were still trying to establish the facts in relation to Mr Al Janabi's death, but added: "We are deeply concerned at reports of the death of one of our PhD students and are seeking official confirmation as a matter of urgency. The University will of course be offering its support to Mohammed Al-Janabi's during this difficult time."