Suha Abdul Jarallah, a candidate on the list of pro-Western former prime minister Iyad Allawi, was shot dead as she left a house in the Ras al-Jadda neighbourhood in central Mosul, 350 kilometres (218 miles) north of Baghdad.

"She was getting out of a relatives' home when she was shot dead by an unidentified gunman who then fled in a car carrying two other men," the officer said.

Intissar Allawi, a relative of Allawi, said Jarallah's killing was politically motivated.

"Obviously it was," she told AFP. "These are independent and national people who are targeted to prevent them from standing in the general election."

Campaigning for the delayed poll, the second parliamentary vote since the US-led ouster of dictator Saddam Hussein, is set to begin on February 12.

The past week has been dominated by a row over a judicial panel's decision to allow around 500 candidates accused of having links to Saddam's outlawed Baath party to stand after all, having previously been banned from the ballot.

Iraqi MPs plan to meet on Monday to debate the matter after Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who branded the ruling "illegal," recalled parliament.

Allawi, a secular Shiite and a former Baathist, was provisionally appointed premier by Washington in June 2004 and held the post for just under a year.

The election, which was originally set for January, is seen as a test of reconciliation between the Sunni minority dominant under executed strongman Saddam and the Shiite majority represented by Maliki's government.

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