According to The Age, Nicholas Berg was detained by Iraqi police because his passport had a Jewish name and an Israeli visa stamp—and they thought he was a spy.

Nicholas Berg, the American who was filmed being beheaded, had been arrested by Iraqi police earlier and held on suspicion of being a spy because he had a Jewish name and an Israeli stamp in his passport, it has emerged.

At the al-Fanar Tower Hotel in Baghdad, friends spoke fondly of a body-building adventurer who shrugged off danger, was passionate about his family and had been capitalising on the technology boom in Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein.

Hugo Infante, 31, a Chilean photographer said he re-met Mr Berg around April 6 when the American returned to Baghdad, two weeks after he said he was going to Mosul for two days on business. “He said: ‘They arrested me because I had a Jewish last name and an Israeli stamp in my passport.’ Then the Iraqi police put him with the US military because they thought he was a spy.

”Nick told me all this. He wasn’t mad. It was just an adventure for him. He said: ‘This shit happens. It was bad luck.’ “

In the Arab world, any indication that someone is a Jew or has links with Israel can be potentially fatal, as Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter who was beheaded on video in Pakistan two years ago, found out to his cost.