Reports from Iraq say an outspoken secular Iraqi journalist has been shot dead at his Baghdad home.

Iraq’s Journalistic Freedoms Observatory says journalist Raed al-Juburi “was killed with a bullet to the heart” on May 5 in Baghdad’s Qadisiyah neighborhood.

It said the motives behind the killing were not immediately clear.

But some of Juburi’s colleagues said he was being threatened and had recently handed out the phone number of the Journalistic Freedoms Observatory in case something happened to him.

Juburi hosted a TV program on the Al-Rasheed channel and wrote an opinion column in the Azzaman newspaper.

Colleagues say he did not shy away from blaming Iraqi politicians for the country’s security and economic troubles.

An Iraqi security spokesman told Iraqiya state television that a preliminary investigation suggested Juburi may have committed suicide.

But the dead journalist’s father rejected that claim.

The Paris-based Reporters Without Borders said the source of threats against Juburi could have been political.

Based on reporting by AFP and Iraqiya