12 Sep 11 | Index Index, minipost
A BBC stringer who was killed in Afghanistan in July was shot by a US soldier who mistook him for a suicide bomber during a battle against insurgents, NATO has said. Releasing the findings of its investigation into the death of Ahmed Omed Khpulwak, the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force issued a statement expressing its condolences for the killing, but said its forces had complied with the laws of armed conflict and acted reasonably. According to the statement, US forces shot Khpalwak in order to “detonate a suicide vest IED”, after mistaking him for an insurgent.
12 Sep 11 | Index Index, minipost
Television journalist Pedro Alfonso Flores Silva died in hospital yesterday from gunshot wounds sustained in an attack on Tuesday. While riding home on his motorcycle, Flores Silva, 36, was intercepted by a taxi and shot in the abdomen by a hooded assailant. Flores Silva ran and hosted a news programme, “Visión Agraria”, during which he had made accusations of corruption against Marco Rivero Huertas, mayor of the Comandante Noel district. The journalist’s wife told reporters that her husband had received anonymous death threats for several months prior to his murder, which she believed stemmed from the accusations made in his programme.
24 Jun 11 | Index Index, Middle East and North Africa, minipost
Afaq.tv cameraman, Salem Alwan Al-Gharabi, was killed in a suicide bomb attack in southern Iraq on Tuesday. At least 27 people were killed in the double car bomb attack outside a government compound in Diwaniya, a city 275 km south of Baghdad. Al-Gharabi had gone to cover the regional council’s weekly meeting when he was killed in the blast.
06 Jun 11 | Index Index, minipost, News and features
The body of missing Mexican journalist, Noel Lopez Olguin, was found in Veracruz on 1 June. Lopez, a columnist for a small local newspapers, was kidnapped from his home by two gunmen in March. Throughout his career Lopez was critical of local corruption and newspapers are now distancing themselves from his work for fear of reprisal attacks.
