Lance Corporal Keys was among the soldiers who died

Lance Corporal Tom Keys from Llanuwchllyn, near Bala, was one of the six military policemen shot dead in the southern town of Al Majar al-Kabir on Tuesday.

Plaid Cymru MP Elfyn Llwyd - who has held a private meeting with the family - has called for a government inquiry into the deaths.

The congregation at St Deiniol's Church in the north Wales village remembered the former paratrooper in their prayers during their morning service.

L/Cpl Keys was killed just days before his 21st birthday as he and his five colleagues in the Royal Military Police were planning to conduct a routine joint patrol with local militia in Majar al-Kabir.

Mr Llwyd made a private visit to the Keys family

But locals mistakenly thought they were to begin a series of house searches and attacked them.

They chased them into a police station where the soldiers were shot. The British Army claims all the deaths were murder.

It has pledged no mass punishment but has insisted there will be no amnesty for those responsible.

Army commanders claim a series of misunderstandings led to the fatal riot.

But L/Cpl Keys' father, Reg Keys, has demanded to know why the men apparently had insufficient back-up.

The army has said the men had called for help some 30 minutes before they died, but their call might have been confused with a call for reinforcements from a paratrooper unit which was being ambushed at around that time.

RMP TROOPS KILLED IN IRAQ Corporal Simon Miller, 21 Tyne and Wear (pictured) Sergeant Simon Alexander Hamilton-Jewell, 41 from Chessington, Surrey Corporal Russell Aston, 30 Swadlincote, Derbyshire Corporal Paul Graham Long, 24 Colchester Lance-Corporal Benjamin John McGowan Hyde, 23 Northallerton, Yorks Lance-Corporal Thomas Richard Keys, 20 Bala, N Wales The soldiers who died Service to remember the dead

On Saturday, the British Army sent 500 troops in to the town where the men died.

They were met by a group of Shia clerics and prominent officials in a peaceful ceremony aimed at restoring relations.

Back in L/Cpl Keys' home village in Gwynedd, the congregation at St Deiniol's church remembered the dead man from their community.

Heather Fenton, the acting rector of the church, said the circumstances of L/Cpl Keys' death must make it all the harder for the family to come to terms with the tragedy.

She said: "I have been praying for them personally.

"I really want people to understand that they can pray for people who are bereaved and particularly people who are part of this community."