A British oil executive has been shot dead in front of his wife in what appears to have been an assassination-style killing in Belgium.

Nicholas Mockford, 60, an executive for ExxonMobil, was gunned down as he left an Italian restaurant in a suburb of the capital Brussels.

He was shot three times, once as he lay on he floor, and his wife Mary was left beaten and covered in blood, cradling her husband and shouting for help. He died on the way to hospital.

Witnesses say they saw the couple walk across the street to their Lexus car before shots were fired.

Reports suggest two men

Police initially thought the killing could have been an attempted car-jacking because witnesses saw the couple walking across the street to their vehicle before the attack.

But Mr Mockford was shot three times, once as he lay on the ground, leading to speculation he could have been deliberately targeted.

One Belgian officer told the BBC the killing was a "very strange case" which had now been passed to federal investigators.

The shooting is understood to have happened on 14 October, but the news has only now emerged after Belgian police imposed a reporting blackout.

The Daily Telegraph said police in Belgium were considering all possible motives for the shooting, including an attempted carjacking, although Mockford's car was not stolen.

The Belgian prosecutor's office said a "judicial instruction" from the investigating judge, Martine Quintin, meant they could give no detail about the killing. A spokesman said this was "usual in such a serious murder investigation", the Telegraph reported.

Mockford is understood to have worked for ExxonMobil since the 1970s and was head of marketing for interim technologies at ExxonMobil Chemicals, Europe, promoting new types of greener fuel. Brought up in Leicestershire, he had moved abroad from Chichester some years ago, living in Belgium and Singapore.

He had been married to his Belgian wife for 15 years and had three grown-up children living in Britain from his first marriage, the Telegraph said.

A family member, who asked not to be named, told the newspaper they thought it was a professional hit. "We are all confused about what has happened. Nick was a genuinely lovely, clean-cut, mild-mannered, family man," the source said. "He was shot so calmly and so quickly, it smacks horribly of a professional hit, but we can't fathom why. He isn't the type to cave in to blackmail and it just doesn't compute."

Originally posted by TruthxIsxInxThexMist
reply to post by CosmicEgg

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I'm pretty sure earlier this year one other guy high up in the Oil Business was shot at and injured , maybe even killed.... I think it was in Italy somewhere..... maybe people are peeeed off at the whole Business and will be going after other guys too....

Originally posted by steppenwolf86

Originally posted by TruthxIsxInxThexMist
reply to post by CosmicEgg

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I'm pretty sure earlier this year one other guy high up in the Oil Business was shot at and injured , maybe even killed.... I think it was in Italy somewhere..... maybe people are peeeed off at the whole Business and will be going after other guys too....

Yeah, THAT makes sense. Political assassinations are so 1980, now people are trying to kill off faceless corporations!