AFGHANISTAN: 9

Marc Brunereau, free-lancer, September 5, 2001, Taloqan/Tashkent, Uzbekistan

Brunereau, a free-lance reporter who spent years covering the war in Afghanistan for publications including the Belgian daily Le Soir, died in Tashkent of wounds sustained in a 1999 shelling incident in Taloqan, Afghanistan.

Brunereau and others were arriving by helicopter in the northern city of Taloqan when the airfield came under Taliban fire. Brunereau suffered severe shrapnel wounds. Although he received months of medical treatment, including several operations, shrapnel that remained in his body caused continuing health problems and apparently resulted in his death two years later.


Johanne Sutton, Radio France Internationale, November 11, 2001, Takhar Province Pierre Billaud, Radio Télévision Luxembourg, November 11, 2001, Takhar Province
Volker Handloik, free-lance reporter, November 11, 2001, Takhar Province

Sutton, a reporter for Radio France Internationale; Billaud, a reporter for Radio Télévision Luxembourg; and Handloik, a free-lance reporter on assignment for the German news magazine Stern, were killed on the evening of November 11 when Taliban forces fired on a Northern Alliance military convoy.

The reporters were among a group of six journalists who were riding with Northern Alliance soldiers in an armored personnel carrier (APC). The soldiers were advancing toward Taliban positions near the city of Taloqan, the capital of Takhar Province and the alliance's former headquarters.

Taliban forces opened fire on the convoy and hit the APC carrying the journalists with a rocket-propelled grenade. The jolt from the grenade's impact caused some people to fall off the tank while others may have jumped off. It was unclear whether the journalists who died were killed in the cross fire, or whether Taliban soldiers later executed at least two of them.

Three journalists survived the attack: Paul McGeough, a reporter for the Australian newspaper The Sydney Morning Herald; Véronique Rebeyrotte, a reporter for France Culture radio; and Levon Sevunts, a reporter for the Montreal Gazette.


Azizullah Haidari, Reuters, November 19, 2001, Nangarhar Province
Harry Burton, Reuters Television, November 19, 2001, Nangarhar Province
Julio Fuentes, El Mundo, November 19, 2001, Nangarhar Province
Maria Grazia Cutuli, Corriere della Serra, November 19, 2001, Nangarhar Province

Haidari, an Afghan-born photographer for the Reuters news agency; Burton, an Australian cameraman for Reuters; Fuentes, a Spanish correspondent for the Madrid-based newspaper El Mundo; and Cutuli, an Italian correspondent for the Milan-based daily Corriere della Serra, were killed by a group of gunmen who ambushed their convoy.

The journalists were traveling through eastern Nangarhar Province at the head of a convoy of about eight vehicles when they were stopped by a group of armed men near the town of Sarobi, some 55 miles (90 kilometers) east of Kabul. Gunmen dragged the four journalists out of two of the front cars, marched them into the surrounding hills, and executed them using Kalashnikov rifles, according to a driver and translator who were allowed to flee and later spoke to reporters.

On the morning of November 20, the bodies were brought to Jalalabad, where colleagues identified them.

Although an anti-Taliban coalition in Jalalabad had chosen a new governor for Nangarhar that weekend, local authorities had not secured full control over the province.

Ulf Strömberg, TV4, November 26, 2001, Taloqan

Strömberg, a cameraman for the Swedish channel TV4, was murdered in the early morning during a robbery at the house in Taloqan where he and several other journalists were staying.

At around 2 a.m., armed gunmen broke into the house and entered the room where two journalists from the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet were sleeping. The intruders demanded money, which they were given, and also stole equipment including cameras, computers, and a satellite phone, according to Aftonbladet.

The robbers threatened to kill the two journalists—Martin Adler, a photographer, and Bo Liden, a correspondent—but left the room after an Afghan translator intervened on their behalf, according to a Reuters report. The gunmen then proceeded to the room Strömberg was sharing with his TV4 colleague Rolf Porseryd, a correspondent. Porseryd told reporters that Strömberg went to the door and slammed it shut when he saw the gunmen, who fired several shots before fleeing.

Strömberg, 42, was apparently hit in the chest by a bullet fired through the door. Though colleagues rushed him to a local hospital, his wounds were fatal.


ALGERIA: 2

Fadila Nejma, Echourouk, June 14, 2001, Algiers
Adel Zerrouk, Al-Rai, June 14, 2001, Algiers

Two Algerian journalists were killed while covering mass anti-government protests organized by Berber community leaders in the capital, Algiers.

Nejma, a reporter for the Arabic weekly Echourouk, died after being struck by a speeding bus during the protests. Nejma suffered severe chest and leg injuries and died later in the hospital.

Local journalists and press sources reported that the bus driver ran over Nejma while trying to escape demonstrators intent on torching his bus, or that one of the protesters had commandeered the vehicle and was trying to crash it into local security forces.

Also killed was Zerrouk, a reporter with the Arabic daily Al-Rai. Some CPJ sources and local press reports stated that Zerrouk died after a crowd of protesters trampled him. According to other reports, however, the journalist was hit by the same bus that killed Nejma.


BANGLADESH: 1

Nahar Ali, Anirban, April 21, 2001, Khulna

Ali, a correspondent for the Khulna-based, Bengali-language daily Anirban, died shortly before midnight on April 21, while undergoing treatment at Khulna Medical College Hospital for injuries sustained in an attack days earlier. Late on the night of April 17, masked men kidnapped Ali from his home in the village of Shovna, according to local press reports. The assailants stabbed him, beat him severely, and broke his hands and legs before abandoning him on the outskirts of his village, according to police.

Ali was found unconscious and taken to the hospital in Khulna, a major city in southwestern Bangladesh. Doctors said he died due to major brain damage and profuse bleeding.

Police suggested that members of the outlawed Biplobi Communist Party may have killed Ali because of a dispute over ownership of a shrimp farm. However, journalists in Khulna said that the investigation lacked credibility because Ali's reporting had uncovered links between police and smuggling rings in the region. CPJ sources said that Ali, who worked as the Dumuria subdistrict correspondent for Anirban, was killed because "he knew too much" about the workings of local criminal syndicates and the complicity of some local authorities in their activities.


BOLIVIA: 1

Juan Carlos Encinas, free-lancer, July 29, 2001, Catavi

Encinas, 39, a free-lance reporter in the small town of Catavi in La Paz Department, died of wounds sustained while he was covering a fight between two mining cooperatives that were vying for control of a limestone quarry outside the city.

On July 29, about 50 armed members of the mining cooperative Marmolera Comunitaria Ltda surrounded and attacked members of Cooperativa Multiactiva Catavi Ltda, which controlled the quarry.

The attackers fired at least seven shots, wounding a worker and Encinas, who was shot in the groin. Encinas was initially treated at a local medical post but died on the way to a hospital in the city of El Alto.

Encinas was carrying a camera and a tape recorder, and his credentials identified him as a journalist. Three days before Encinas' death, a small production company hired him to report on the story for La Paz--based TV channel Canal 21, according to the local press union Federación de Trabajadores de la Prensa de Bolivia.

Two days after Encinas' death, the El Alto police arrested eight men suspected of the killing. Though they were initially ordered released on bail, the Superior District Court of La Paz overturned that decision and the suspects remained in preventive detention.


CHINA: 1

Feng Zhaoxia, Gejie Daobao, January 15, 2001, Xi'an

Feng, a reporter for the Xi'an-based daily Gejie Daobao, was found in a ditch outside Xi'an with his throat cut, according to Chinese and international press reports.

Feng was an investigative reporter who wrote about criminal gangs and their links to corrupt local politicians. He had received repeated death threats, and his rented room had been broken into many times. In the days before his death, he told colleagues he was being followed and that he feared for his life, according to Reuters. On January 14, he moved to new lodgings as a safety precaution.

Soon after Feng's body was found, police ruled his death a suicide and banned the local press from writing about it. According to relatives who identified his body, there was a four-inch gash in his throat and no blood on his clothes, making it unlikely he could have killed himself. One relative told Reuters, "He had no reason to commit suicide. He had a happy, healthy family, a good job, and no psychological problems."

Feng's relatives and colleagues believe he was killed for his journalistic work. They have petitioned local authorities to reopen the case but have received no response.

Feng, a former farmer, began writing articles and sending them to local publications in the hope of becoming a journalist. After his first article was published in 1980, he won several awards for his writing before being hired by Gejie Daobao in 1996.


COLOMBIA: 3

Flavio Bedoya, Voz, April 27, 2001, Tumaco

Four unidentified gunmen on motorcycles shot and killed Bedoya, a regional correspondent for the Bogotá-based Communist Party newspaper Voz, as he stepped off a bus in the southwestern port city of Tumaco, police and colleagues said.

Bedoya, 52, had worked for Voz for about a year and a half, according to Alvaro Angarita, one of the weekly's senior correspondents.

Angarita linked the murder to a series of highly critical reports that Bedoya had published about collusion between security forces and right-wing paramilitary gangs in Nariño Department. Police confirmed the killing but gave no further details.

Southwestern Colombia, especially Nariño Department and neighboring Cauca Department, experienced a number of paramilitary attacks in the two months before the killing.

Colombia's small Communist Party has political links to the left-wing guerrilla organization Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), but has traditionally advocated social change through grassroots mobilization and the ballot box rather than armed revolution.

CPJ published a news alert about the Bedoya murder on May 14.

José Duviel Vásquez Arias, La Voz de la Selva, July 6, 2001, Florencia

An unidentified gunman shot and killed Vásquez, news director of the local radio station La Voz de la Selva (The Voice of the Jungle), and tried to kill his colleague Omar Orlando García Garzón, news director of the same station.

The two journalists, who had just finished the first broadcast of their twice-daily news program, were driving home from work in Florencia, a city in southern Caquetá Department that is a former stronghold of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the country's largest leftist guerrilla group. More recently, the town has become a power base for an anti-Communist paramilitary group linked to the right-wing United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC).

García told CPJ that the gunman first shot Vásquez and then aimed at him. Vásquez's slumped body intercepted the second bullet, which merely brushed García, who was able to give the authorities a detailed description of the killer. The next day, García began receiving threatening phone calls. On July 9, an anonymous caller warned him to leave Florencia on pain of death.

In addition to witnessing the killing, García had assisted Vásquez in documenting corruption implicating local government officials and members of the FARC, the journalist told CPJ.

The journalists had also investigated Caquetá governor Pablo Adriano Muñoz, who was reportedly elected with support from the FARC, for allegedly embezzling public funds. Muñoz accused Vásquez of "persecuting" him, whereupon Vásquez filed a defamation suit against the governor. Vásquez's lawyer, Carlos Alberto Beltrán, had to flee Florencia after a failed attempt on his life, according to García.

Vásquez stated during one of his broadcasts that if anything happened to him or his family, it would be the governor's fault.

García reported that Vásquez's last broadcasts dealt with an AUC communiqué in which the organization announced changes in its local leadership and promised to refrain from kidnapping and extortion.

The journalist's murder followed those of the station's former news director, Alfredo Abad López, whom Vásquez had replaced, and another colleague, Guillermo Léon Agudelo. García, his wife, and their two young daughters have since left the country.
On July 11, CPJ issued an alert about Vásquez's murder.

Jorge Enrique Urbano Sánchez, radio and television journalist, July 8, 2001, Buenaventura
Two unidentified attackers shot Urbano four times at around 2 a.m. while he was celebrating his 55th birthday with friends in the coastal city of Buenaventura, family members and authorities said.

Urbano hosted a one-hour morning radio program broadcast on local station Mar Estéreo. He was also the administrator of the Néstor Urbano Tenorio Park.

Urbano apparently devoted his final radio broadcast to denouncing a local criminal gang called Tumba Puertas (Knock Down Doors). The gang was a frequent topic of discussion on Urbano's show; the broadcaster often blamed Tumba Puertas for rampant crime in the park and urged police to crack down on drug dealing there.

Urbano had also coordinated efforts to relocate street vendors and remove drug addicts from the park. Before his murder, he received death threats that he attributed to these public statements and actions.

CPJ published an alert about the Urbano murder on July 11.


COSTA RICA: 1

Parmenio Medina Pérez, "La Patada," July 7, 2001, San José

Medina, producer and host of the weekly radio program "La Patada" (The Kick), was murdered by unknown assailants who shot him three times at close range with a .38-caliber weapon, once in the back and twice in the head.

Medina's 28-year-old program often denounced official corruption and earned him numerous threats. Starting in 1999, on-air accusations he made about alleged fiscal improprieties at a local Catholic radio station led to its closure and an investigation of its former director.

Two months before his murder, Medina received death threats in connection with the accusations, and unknown attackers fired bullets at his house. Although Medina had been under police protection, he asked that it be lifted just days before his death.

In a July 10 letter, CPJ praised President Miguel Angel Rodríguez Echeverría for condemning the murder and encouraged the president to ensure that the perpetrators were caught. President Rodríguez responded with an e-mail message saying, "[M]y government is committed to cooperate as best as it can with the judicial authorities to clarify these facts until their ultimate consequences and will do all it can to discover the material and intellectual authors."

No substantial progress in the investigation had been reported at year's end, however.


GEORGIA: 1

Georgy Sanaya, Rustavi-2, July 26, 2001, Tbilisi

Sanaya, a popular 26-year-old Georgian journalist, was found dead in his Tbilisi apartment. He had been shot once in the head at close range with a 9 mm weapon. Sanaya anchored "Night Courier," a nightly political talk show in which he interviewed Georgia's leading politicians on the independent television station Rustavi-2.

Nika Tabatadze, news director of Rustavi-2, told CPJ that Sanaya's colleagues became concerned when he failed to report for work at the usual time on the afternoon of July 26 and did not answer his home or cellular telephones. That evening, a group of co-workers went to his apartment and knocked repeatedly on the door. When no one answered, they called the police, who entered the apartment and discovered Sanaya's body.

In a special television address, President Eduard Shevardnadze directed the minister of internal affairs, the prosecutor general, and the minister of state security to oversee the investigation personally. On July 27, President Shevardnadze met with U.S. chargé d'affaires Philip Remler and asked for the FBI's help in the investigation, according to Georgian and Russian press sources.

Although the police, assisted by a group of FBI agents, immediately launched an investigation, it failed to produce significant results. A suspect was detained in August but was later released due to lack of evidence, CPJ sources reported.

Sanaya's Rustavi-2 colleagues firmly believe that the murder resulted from his professional work, although they were not aware of any specific threats against the journalist. Erosi Kitsmarishvili, executive director of Rustavi-2, told CPJ that the murder could have been intended to intimidate the station, which is known for its investigative reporting on state corruption and misuse of power in Georgia. The station has frequently been the target of government harassment in recent years.

While Sanaya's work was not generally controversial, he had recently hosted a segment on Georgia's Pankisi Gorge, a lawless area near the Chechen border that is known for drug smuggling and kidnapping. A former parliamentary deputy who appeared on the program speculated publicly that criminals from the Pankisi Gorge region may have been responsible for Sanaya's murder.

On December 6, police arrested former police officer Grigol Khurtsilava after a ballistic analysis traced the murder weapon to him, the Georgian news agency Black Sea Press reported. Acting on his confession, police found the murder weapon and keys to Sanaya's apartment. Khurtsilava was then officially charged with Sanaya's murder, local and international sources reported. Law enforcement officials pledged to disclose the motive for the crime in the near future. Although they insisted that the murder was not related to his journalism, Sanaya's colleagues believe he was killed because of his work.


GUATEMALA: 1

Jorge Mynor Alegría Armendáriz, Radio Amatique, September 5, 2001, Puerto Barrios

Alegría, host of a call-in show "Línea Directa," was shot at least five times outside his home in Puerto Barrios, a port city located on the Caribbean coast in Izabal Department.

Alegría, who also worked as a part-time correspondent for the national radio network Emisoras Unidas, had reportedly been threatened on three different occasions after broadcasting stories about corruption. In addition, one of his colleagues told the press that local officials had tried to bribe Alegría to keep him quiet about their activities.

Police detained two suspects in connection with Alegría's murder. One suspect had a 9 mm handgun whose bullets apparently matched those found at the crime scene. Preliminary investigations by the Puerto Barrios prosecutor's office revealed that the handgun had recently fired six shots.

CPJ published a news alert about the murder on September 18.

On September 20, the Ombudsman's Office for Human Rights (PDH) released the results of its investigations. The report concluded that Alegría's murder was politically motivated and was probably masterminded by local officials in retaliation for the journalist's coverage of corruption in Puerto Barrios. The PDH added that the two suspects in police custody were scapegoats. A report with the PDH's findings was sent to the newly created Prosecutor's Office for Crimes against Journalists.

In early October, the two suspects were released after ballistics test proved that the confiscated handgun was not the murder weapon.

At year's end, the Puerto Barrios prosecutor's office and police were investigating Alegría's murder as either a crime of passion, a politically motivated crime, or a common crime. However, they have not offered any evidence to support their theories. According to the news agency CERIGUA, a local prosecutor declared that a political motivation could neither be ruled out nor confirmed.


HAITI: 1

Brignol Lindor, Radio Echo 2000, December 3, 2001, Petit-Goâve

A machete-wielding mob hacked to death Lindor, news director of the private station Radio Echo 2000 that is based in the coastal town of Petit-Goâve, some 40 miles west of Port-au-Prince.

At 11 a.m., Lindor and a colleague were driving to one of Lindor's other jobs, as a customs official. Their car was ambushed by supporters of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's Lavalas Family (FL) party. Lindor's colleague fled, but Lindor was attacked and killed after he tried to take refuge in the nearby home of a local town counselor.

Lindor hosted the political talk show "Dialogue." He had received numerous threats from local authorities for inviting members of the 15-party opposition coalition Democratic Convergence (CD) to appear on his show.

After Aristide launched a "zero tolerance" anti-crime campaign in June, telling police officers that street criminals caught red-handed could be summarily punished without trial, Petit-Goâve deputy mayor Dumé Bony announced in public that the "zero tolerance" policy should be applied to Lindor. Opposition parties and human rights groups accused Aristide of issuing a carte blanche for extrajudicial executions.

Lindor's December 11 funeral turned violent when police used bludgeons and tear gas on mourners who were shouting anti-Aristide slogans, according to wire reports.


INDIA: 1

Moolchand Yadav, free-lancer, Jhansi, July 30, 2001

Yadav, a free-lance reporter who regularly contributed to Hindi-language dailies, including Jansatta and Punjab Kesari, was shot dead on the street in Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh. Colleagues said that Yadav had been murdered at the behest of two powerful landowners angered by his exposés about local corruption.

LATVIA: 1

Gundars Matiss, Kurzeme Vards, November 28, Liepaja

Matiss, a crime reporter with the Liepaja-based daily Kurzeme Vards, was attacked on November 15 in the stairwell of his apartment building after he returned home from a shopping expedition. In a phone conversation from the hospital two hours after the attack, Matiss told the paper's editor-in-chief, Andzilss Remess, that someone followed him home and hit him from behind with a truncheon or club. He was struck several times on the head, arms, and legs. The assailant fled when neighbors interrupted the attack.

Matiss underwent three operations and fell into a coma. He died on November 28 from a brain hemorrhage. The reporter had most recently investigated the contraband alcohol trade in Liepaja, according to Remess.

Though the police cited robbery, personal revenge, and retaliation for his journalism as possible motives, Matiss had not been robbed, and does not seem to have been involved in any serious personal dispute. His editor told CPJ: "Matiss knew a lot about the criminal world. He was one of those reporters who went deep." At press time, the police investigation was still ongoing.


MEXICO: 1

José Luis Ortega Mata, Semanario de Ojinaga, February 19, 2001, Ojinaga

Ortega Mata, 37, was the editor of the weekly Semanario de Ojinaga, based in Ojinaga, Chihuahua State. He was shot twice in the head at close range with a .22-caliber firearm on the evening of February 19, according to local press reports.

Friends and relatives of the journalist linked his murder to a front-page story in the February 15 issue of Semanario de Ojinaga reporting that the federal Attorney General's Office (PGR) was investigating drug trafficking activities in the town of Aldama, near the state capital, Chihuahua. Semanario de Ojinaga also claimed that local traffickers were moving drugs from safe houses in Aldama through Ojinaga to the United States.

It has also been reported that the paper was about to publish a story alleging that drug traffickers were funding the electoral campaigns of local politicians, and that Ortega Mata had received threats in connection with the story. In the past, the weekly has run articles criticizing local politicians and police.

CPJ expressed its concern about the murder of Ortega Mata in a March 7 letter to Arturo González Rascón, attorney general of the state of Chihuahua.

On April 29, a businessman named Jesús Manuel Herrera was arrested by state police and charged with Ortega Mata's murder based on eyewitness testimony. However, jail records show that the alleged eyewitness who identified Herrera as the assailant was in jail at the time of Ortega Mata's death. In addition, the Chihuahua Attorney General's Office was unable to provide a motive and offered no other evidence. Despite these revelations, Herrera remained imprisoned pending further investigations.

On July 13, after several hearings and more than 70 days in prison, an appeals court judge ruled that the evidence against Herrera was insufficient, and he was released.


PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES: 1

Muhammad al-Bishawi, Najah Press Office, IslamOnline.net, July 31, Nablus, West Bank

Al-Bishawi, a reporter for the Nablus-based Palestinian news service Najah Press Office and for IslamOnline.net, an Internet news service based in Qatar, was killed in an Israeli missile attack that had targeted Hamas leader Jamal Mansour. Israel had accused Mansour of masterminding several suicide bombings.

Various sources, including al-Bishawi's Cairo-based editor, reported that at the time of the attack, al-Bishawi was in the Palestinian Center for Studies and Media, a Hamas information office, to interview Mansour for an article he was writing for IslamOnline.

Al-Bishawi covered many topics for IslamOnline, ranging from Palestinian weddings to suicide bombers.


PARAGUAY: 1

Salvador Medina Velázquez, FM Ñemity, January 5, 2001, Capiibary

Medina, 27, president of the board of community radio station FM Ñemity in the town of Capiibary in the San Pedro Department, about 250 km (150 miles) from Asunción, was ambushed and shot by an unidentified gunman.

The journalist was driving a motorcycle with his brother Gaspar when a masked attacker came out from behind some bushes and shot him in the left side at point-blank range. The attacker then fled into the bush, according to local press reports. Medina lost control of his motorcycle, fell to the ground, and died immediately.

The journalist's family linked the attack to his reports on timber smuggling in state-owned forest reservations in Capiibary, local sources told CPJ. In particular, Medina had singled out a gang of alleged smugglers with ties to the National Republican Association (ARN), also known as the Colorado Party.

One of those whom Medina had accused was arrested in March for timber smuggling. In addition, Medina had covered incidents of livestock theft, along with organized crime in a nearby town.

In January and February, the Paraguayan police arrested four men suspected of killing Medina, but at least four other suspects were still at large.

In a hearing on September 6, Public Prosecutor Ramón Trinidad Zelaya charged Milcíades Maylin, one of the four suspects in police custody, with Medina's murder. Judge Silvio Flores granted Trinidad's request that the charges against the three other suspects be dismissed.

On October 16, a three-judge sentencing tribunal found Maylin guilty of murdering Medina and sentenced him to a 25-year prison term. Medina's relatives, however, believe that the individuals who ordered the murder have not been brought to justice.

In a hearing on September 6, Public Prosecutor Ramón Trinidad Zelaya charged Milcíades Maylin, one of the four suspects in police custody, with Medina's murder. Judge Silvio Flores granted Trinidad's request that the charges against the three other suspects be dismissed.

On October 16, a three-judge sentencing tribunal found Maylin guilty of murdering Medina and sentenced him to a 25-year prison term. Medina's relatives, however, believe that the individuals who ordered the murder have not been brought to justice.


PHILIPPINES: 2

Roland Ureta, Radio DYKR, January 3, 2001, Aklan Province

Radio journalist Ureta was gunned down on the night of January 3 when two motorcycle-riding men waylaid him en route from Kalibo, the capital of Aklan Province, to the town of Lezo.

Ureta was program director of the radio station DYKR, an affiliate of the Radio Mindanao Network. Police estimated that he was killed within an hour of leaving the radio station, where he had just hosted "Agong Nightwatch," his evening radio program.

Ureta was apparently murdered as a result of his radio commentaries, which included pieces about local government corruption and police involvement in the drug trade.

Candelario Cayona, Radio DXLL, May 30, 2001, Zamboanga City

At about 6 a.m. on May 30, three unidentified men ambushed Cayona, a radio commentator for the local station DXLL, as he left home on his motorcycle to host a morning broadcast. Cayona died on the spot from four gunshot wounds, including two to the face. The assailants, all identified as young males, fled the scene.

Cayona was an outspoken commentator who often criticized local politicians, the military, and Muslim separatist guerrillas. The journalist had recently received several death threats, including an on-air threat that was phoned in by Abu Sabaya, spokesman for the Islamic guerrilla group Abu Sayyaf. Although Cayona reported the threats to station officials, he was not escorted by a bodyguard on the morning of the attack.

Cayona is the second DXLL staffer to be murdered in recent years. In 1998, Rey Bancayrin, another outspoken commentator for the station, was actually killed on the air when two unidentified gunmen burst into the studio and shot him dead.


RUSSIA: 1

Eduard Markevich, Novy Reft, September 18, Reftinsky, Sverdlovsk Region

Markevich, 29, editor and publisher of Novy Reft, the local newspaper in the town of Reftinsky, Sverdlovsk Region, was found dead on September 18. He had been shot in the back.

Novy Reft often criticized local officials, and Markevich's colleagues told the Itar-Tass news service that he had received threatening telephone phone calls prior to the attack.

This was not the first attack on Markevich, the Region-Inform news agency reported. In 1998, two unknown assailants broke into his apartment and severely beat him in front of his pregnant wife. They were never caught.

Last year, Markevich was illegally detained for 10 days after the local prosecutor's office charged him with defamation over a Novy Reft article questioning the propriety of a lucrative government contract that gave a former deputy prosecutor the exclusive right to represent the Reftinsky administration in court.

In May 2001, federal prosecutor general Vladimir Ustinov reprimanded the local prosecutor for violating Markevich's constitutional rights.

Police have launched an investigation into Markevich's murder. Almost four months after the journalist's death, authorities have made no progress, the Moscow-based Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations has reported. Markevich's wife continues to publish Novy Reft.

THAILAND: 2

Withayut Sangsopit, free-lancer, April 10, 2001, Surat Thani

Withayut, a radio journalist and commentator, was gunned down on April 10 in the southern city of Surat Thani.

According to police, Withayut was approached by several gunmen and shot five times as he was about to enter his radio studio to begin his popular morning program, "Catch Up With the World." Withayut's program was carried on Fourth Army Radio, the regional affiliate of the Royal Thai Army Radio and Television network.

Surat Thani police believe Withayut, 56, was killed as a result of his reporting on irregularities involving a 50 million baht (US$1.1 million) real estate deal for a municipal garbage dump. The reports began in 1999 and eventually led the Interior Ministry to investigate and to order a portion of the money returned to the government.

Police arrested two men in connection with the shooting, one of them a municipal official implicated in the garbage dump scandal.

A well-known radio commentator in southern Thailand, Withayut was for many years a correspondent for the Bangkok-based, Thai-language Daily News before starting his radio program. Police said the journalist had received numerous death threats and was under police protection prior to the murder. However, Withayut's protection was lifted shortly before the killing, according to several Thai newspapers.

Kaset Puengpak, Thai Rath, May 2, 2001, Viset Chaichan

Kaset, a stringer for the Thai-language newspaper Thai Rath, was shot dead in Viset Chaichan District, Ang Thong Province. Kaset was known for his reporting on local drug gangs linked to powerful politicians and police officers, according to Thai Rath and several Thai journalists. The Thai Journalists Association issued a statement saying that Kaset was likely murdered for his journalistic work. After the killing, authorities interrogated a police corporal who had quarreled with Kaset over law enforcement issues in the area. No arrests have been reported in the case.


UKRAINE: 1

Igor Aleksandrov, Tor, July 7, 2001, Slavyansk

Aleksandrov, 44 and director of Tor, an independent television company based in Slavyansk, Donetsk Region, in eastern Ukraine, was attacked on the morning of July 3.

Unknown attackers assaulted Aleksandrov with baseball bats as he entered Tor's offices, according to local news reports. Tor deputy director Sergey Cherneta described the attack to the regional newspaper Donbass: "All of a sudden we heard...blows and screams, after that we heard a moan. I ran downstairs....Our manager was lying in the lobby in a pool of blood with his head cracked open. Two large baseball bats were left nearby."

Aleksandrov was rushed to the local city hospital, where he underwent surgery. The journalist never regained consciousness and died from the head injuries on the morning of July 7.

Aleksandrov's colleagues believe the murder was connected to his television program, "Bez Retushi" (Without Censorship), which featured investigative coverage of government corruption and organized crime. The program often criticized Slavyansk municipal authorities.

Soon after the attack, Donetsk regional prosecutor Viktor Pshonka launched an official investigation. The chief of the Donetsk Administration of Internal Affairs, Gen. Vladimir Malyshev, stated that revenge was the leading motive in the murder but did not elaborate.

Aleksandrov became well known in 1998, when prosecutors brought a criminal case against him for insulting the honor and dignity of a parliamentary deputy. The Slavyansk City Court initially found the journalist guilty but later reviewed its decision after criticism from Ukrainian journalists and international human rights organizations.

The deputy withdrew his defamation complaint against the journalist last year. That removed the immediate legal threat but did not clear Aleksandrov's name, since his conviction was still technically under review. Claiming damage to his professional reputation, Aleksandrov appealed to the European Court of Human Rights, where the case was pending at the time of his murder.

In late August, law enforcement officials arrested an unnamed suspect, according to local press reports. The officials claimed that Aleksandrov's murder was a case of mistaken identity and was not connected with his journalism.

A parliamentary investigative commission was established in September to examine Aleksandrov's murder. In December, the commission voiced its doubts about the validity of the "mistaken identity" theory and stated that it knew who had really killed Aleksandrov, according to local reports.

While the commission refused to forward this information to law enforcement officials, it accused the Ukrainian Security Service of falsifying evidence in the case.

In mid-December, the General Prosecutor's Office officially charged the suspect detained in August, Yury Verdyuk, with Aleksdandrov's murder, local and international sources reported. On December 27, the Donetsk Regional Court scheduled Verdyuk's trial for September 11, 2002.

The journalist's colleagues and family maintain that he was killed for his work, local sources told CPJ.


UNITED KINGDOM: 1

Martin O'Hagan, Sunday World, September 28, 2001, Lurgan, Northern Ireland

O'Hagan, a 51-year-old investigative journalist with the Dublin newspaper Sunday World, was shot dead outside his home in the Northern Ireland town of Lurgan.

O'Hagan was shot several times from a passing car while walking home from a pub with his wife, who was not hurt in the attack. The vehicle used in the attack was found on fire not far from the crime scene. O'Hagan, who worked in the Belfast office of the Sunday World, was an Irish Catholic journalist who had become well known for his coverage of both Catholic and Protestant paramilitary groups.

More than 20 years ago, before he became a journalist, O'Hagan was convicted of running guns for the Irish Republican Army and served five years in prison. But he later turned away from radical politics, studying sociology at the Open University and the University of Ulster and then entering journalism as a free-lancer for local newspapers. His connections in both Catholic Republican and Protestant Loyalist circles, as well as in the British security forces, gave him unusual insight into the conflict but also made him a target for paramilitary reprisals.

In 1989, he was kidnapped and interrogated by the Irish Republican Army, which tried unsuccessfully to force him to divulge his sources, and in the early 1990s he was forced to flee to Dublin after receiving death threats from a top loyalist gunman. O'Hagan returned to Belfast in 1995 after most paramilitary groups had declared cease-fires.

While O'Hagan had received threats from Protestant militants in the past, it is not clear if he had been threatened prior to the shooting. The Red Hand Defenders, which police consider a cover name for Protestant militants from the Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) and the Ulster Defense Association, claimed responsibility for his murder.

Police initially identified the LVF as a primary suspect. Prior to his murder, O'Hagan had been working on several stories about the LVF, the BBC reported. Colleagues believe the LVF targeted O'Hagan for exposing the narcotics network they controlled, as well as assassinations and intimidation rackets they orchestrated. The police investigation continues, and at press time no one had been convicted for the killing.


UNITED STATES: 2

William Biggart, free-lancer, September 11, New York City

Biggart, a free-lance news photographer, was killed in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. The journalist's body was found on September 15 in the rubble at Ground Zero, near the bodies of several firefighters. Biggart had rushed to the scene with his camera shortly after hearing about the attacks.

Robert Stevens, The Sun, October 5, 2001, Boca Raton

Stevens, 63, a photo editor at the tabloid newspaper The Sun, died of inhalation anthrax in Boca Raton, Florida. Authorities opened a criminal investigation into the killing but have not determined where the anthrax came from. However, officials did confirm that the type of anthrax that killed Stevens is the same strain that was mailed to NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw.

YUGOSLAVIA: 2

Kerem Lawton, Associated Press Television News, March 29, 2001, Krivenik, Kosovo

Lawton, 30, a British national and producer for Associated Press Television News, died from shrapnel wounds sustained when a shell struck his car. At least two other civilians were feared dead in the attack, and at least 10 others were injured.

On March 28, the Macedonian Army launched a mini-offensive against Albanian insurgents in the village of Gracani in northern Macedonia. Just across the border in Kosovo, NATO-led peacekeepers stepped up patrols to intercept Albanian guerrillas crossing into Macedonia.

At the time of his death, Lawton had just arrived in the village of Krivenik to cover the deployment of additional NATO-led peacekeeping forces. Both Macedonian military officials and ethnic Albanian insurgents denied responsibility for Lawton's death and the other civilian casualties.

Milan Pantic, Vecernje Novosti, June 11, 2001, Jagodina, Serbia

Pantic, a reporter for the Belgrade daily Vecernje Novosti, was killed shortly before 8 a.m. as he was entering his apartment building in the central Serbian town of Jagodina.

Pantic had gone to fetch a loaf of bread. As he entered the front door of his building, attackers grabbed him from behind, broke his neck, and then struck him several times on the head with a sharp object as he lay face down on the ground, according to Vecernje Novosti.

An eyewitness saw two attackers—both aged 20 to 30 and wearing masks and black shirts—running from the scene, sources at Vecernje Novosti said. Local authorities launched an investigation, but no progress was reported at year's end.
The 47-year-old journalist worked as the Vecernje Novosti correspondent for the Pomoravlje region of central Serbia. He reported extensively on criminal affairs, including corruption in local companies. His wife, Zivka Pantic, told Vecernje Novosti that Pantic had received numerous telephone threats in response to articles he had written.