Journalists Killed in 2002: 21 Confirmed
see unconfirmed cases for this year
BANGLADESH:
2Harunur Rashid, Dainik Purbanchal, March 2, 2002, Khulna
Rashid, a reporter for the Bengali-language newspaper Dainik Purbanchal, was ambushed by gunmen while he was riding his motorcycle to work in the southwestern city of Khulna, according to Bangladeshi and international news reports. Dainik Purbanchal, which is published in Khulna, is a well-regarded regional daily.
Three unidentified young men brought Rashid to a hospital, told doctors he had been injured in a car accident, and then disappeared. A doctor at the hospital told the Dhaka-based newspaper The Independent that Rashid had suffered a fatal bullet wound to his chest.
Rashid, also known as Rashid Khukon, was a crime reporter who had written several stories on official corruption and links between criminal syndicates and outlawed Maoist guerrilla groups, including the Purbo Bangla Communist Party (PBCP). Rashid's relatives told reporters that he was on a PBCP hit list. Though the PBCP issued a statement denying responsibility for Rashid's murder, some colleagues said a splinter faction of the group may be behind the killing.
The reporter had received anonymous death threats throughout his career and, for the last year, had been provided police protection. However, he did not always travel with security guards.
Local journalists believe Rashid was killed for his reporting. Amiya Kanti Pal, a former colleague, told Reuters that, "Rashid was a brave reporter. We suspect that the criminals he wrote about might be behind his murder."
The Criminal Investigation Department, a federal law enforcement body, is investigating the case.
Shukur Hossain, Anirban, July 5, 2002, Ula
ADDED: March 30, 2005
Hossain, a crime reporter for the Khulna-based newspaper Anirban, was kidnapped from his home in Ula, a village near the town of Dumuria, Khulna District, at around midnight by a group of about 35 armed men. Police suspect that the assailants belonged to the outlawed Biplobi Communist Party, one of several guerrilla groups active in the lawless southwest of the country.
Hossain was last seen alive on the banks of the Ghangrail River, according to the national English-language newspaper The Daily Star. Two villagers who were in the area at the time said that they heard shots fired. Although police could not confirm whether Hossain was murdered at the time, his colleagues and his family believe that he was killed.
An investigation published in the Bangla-language daily Janakantha in January 2005 reported that on the day Hossain was abducted, he was forced onto a boat and shot. His body was dumped into the river and was never been found, the report said.
Bangladesh's southwestern Khulna District is a notoriously dangerous place for the press; underground political groups and criminal gangs routinely threaten, attack, and murder journalists in retaliation for their reporting. Between 2000 and 2005, seven journalists were murdered in the southwest.
Hossain was initially placed on CPJ's missing list based on information available at the time. His case was reclassified in March 2005 based on subsequent research.
BRAZIL: 2
Tim Lopes, TV Globo, June 3, 2002, Rio de Janeiro
Lopes, an award-winning investigative reporter with TV Globo, was brutally murdered by drug traffickers.
He had disappeared several days earlier while working on assignment in the suburbs of Rio de Janeiro in a favela, an impoverished community that sits on the outskirts of the city.
On June 2, the 50-year-old Lopes traveled to the favela of Vila Cruzeiro. His driver met him there at around 8 p.m., but the journalist said he needed more time to finish his work. They agreed to meet again at 10 p.m., but Lopes never arrived. This was Lopes' fourth visit to Vila Cruzeiro, and he was carrying a hidden camera.
According to TV Globo, Lopes was working on a report about parties hosted by drug traffickers in Vila Cruzeiro that allegedly involved drugs and the sexual exploitation of minors. Favela residents had told Lopes that they were powerless against drug traffickers and had complained about the lack of police action.
On June 3, TV Globo reported Lopes' disappearance to the police.
According to the Rio de Janeiro Civil Police, two suspects, both members of a gang headed by local drug trafficker Elias Pereira da Silva, also known as "Crazy Elias," were arrested on the morning of June 9. Both men claimed that they heard how Lopes was murdered but denied any involvement in his killing.
According to the suspects' depositions, details of which the police released and the Brazilian press published, drug traffickers close to Pereira da Silva kidnapped Lopes in Vila Cruzeiro at around midnight on June 2. After Lopes told them he was a TV Globo reporter, the traffickers called Pereira da Silva, who was in a nearby favela.
They tied Lopes' hands, forced him into a car, and took him to the favela where Pereira da Silva was staying. There, they beat the reporter and shot him in the feet to keep him from escaping. They then held a mock trial and sentenced Lopes to death.
Pereira da Silva killed Lopes with a sword, and his body was burned and put in a hidden burial ground, said the suspects.
On June 12, police found badly decomposed human remains, along with Lopes' camera and watch in Favela da Grota. After DNA tests, police confirmed on July 5 that the remains belonged to Lopes. Two days later, they were officially buried.
Lopes had received Brazil's most important journalism award in December 2001 for a TV Globo report on drug trafficking. The report, titled "Drug Fair," and broadcast in August 2001, was filmed with a hidden camera and showed how traffickers sold drugs in a makeshift open drug market in a favela outside Rio de Janeiro. Reporter Cristina Guimarães, who co-produced the piece with Lopes and two other colleagues, received death threats in September 2001 and had to leave Rio de Janeiro State, according to the daily O Estado de S. Paulo. The daily Jornal do Brasil reported that Lopes had also received threats for the report.
On September 19, after a two-day search, police apprehended drug lord Pereira da Silva. In early August, several members of his gang who had also been charged with murdering the journalist were either arrested or killed in a shoot-out with the police.
At year's end, Pereira da Silva and his accomplices remained in jail. No date had been set for trial.
Domingos Sávio Brandão Lima Júnior, Folha do Estado, September 30, 2002, Cuiabá
UPDATED: April 4, 2006
Brandão, owner, publisher, and columnist of the daily Folha do Estado, based in the city of Cuiabá in the central-western state of Mato Grosso, was shot at least five times by two unidentified men on a motorcycle.
The two men were waiting for Brandão near the paper’s new offices, which were under construction. As Brandão was surveying the exterior of the building with an engineer from the construction company, the gunmen approached him, shot him in the chest and head, and fled on the motorcycle. Several people witnessed the murder.
In an October 1, 2002, editorial, Folha do Estado blamed the murder on a “parallel power,” a reference to organized crime groups that it said had taken over Mato Grosso. The paper attributed Brandão’s death to its extensive coverage of drug trafficking, illegal gambling, and government corruption. Brandão had not received any threats, the newspaper said.
On October 2, 2002, police arrested former police officers Hércules de Araújo Agostinho and Célio Alves de Souza in connection with the murder of Brandão. During a raid of the suspects’ homes the same day, police confiscated weapons, ammunition, and four motorcycles. Two days later, police announced that ballistic tests confirmed one of the weapons found was used in Brandão’s murder.
In early December 2002, a federal judge ordered that former police officer-turned-businessman João Arcanjo Ribeiro be held in temporary detention after federal and state prosecutors identified him as the head of a major organized crime group and linked him to several homicides, including the murder of Brandão. Ribeiro fled, and was arrested in Uruguay in 2003 and held in detention there while awaiting extradition proceedings.
Later that month, Ribeiro was formally charged with masterminding Brandão’s murder in retaliation for his newspaper’s criticism of organized crime and illegal gambling. Ribeiro also faced homicide, smuggling, money laundering, tax evasion, illegal gambling, and racketeering charges. Prosecutors also charged former police officers Araújo and Alves with involvement in the murder. Two suspects arrested the same month, João Leite and Fernando Barbosa Belo, were charged as accomplices.
In December 2003, Araújo was convicted and sentenced to 18 years in prison. In June 2005, Leite and Alves were convicted and sentenced to 15 and 17 years in prison, respectively. Alves escaped prison in July 2005 and remains a fugitive. In September 2005, Barbosa was convicted and sentenced to 13 years in prison.
On March 10, 2006, Ribeiro was extradited from Uruguay and taken to the Pascoal Ramos Prison near Cuiabá. A state judge is hearing the charges against him to determine whether he should stand trial by jury for ordering the murder of Brandão.
COLOMBIA: 3
Orlando Sierra Hernández, La Patria, February 1, 2002, Manizales
Sierra, a deputy editor and columnist for La Patria newspaper in Manizales, a town in Colombia's coffee-growing region, was shot while walking to work on January 30. He died on February 1.
Authorities believe that any number of local political bosses whom Sierra had denounced in his columns hired an assassin to kill the journalist. "The most likely hypothesis points to politicians, and that's the angle our investigators are continuing to pursue," a spokesperson from the Public Prosecutor's Office told CPJ in mid-December.
Sierra wrote a Sunday column for the 80-year-old newspaper in which he frequently highlighted political corruption and human rights abuses committed by leftist guerrillas, a rival right-wing paramilitary army, and state security agents, said Álvaro Segura López, editor of La Patria.
However, the 42-year-old journalist was most critical of local political bosses who, according to a March 6 editorial in El Tiempo, Colombia's top daily newspaper, "run the department like a feudal colony." Sierra frequently accused prominent politicians from the local Liberal and Conservative parties of nepotism, vote buying, and looting public coffers.
Following death threats in 1998, Sierra was assigned bodyguards for a short period but later stopped using them, according to a joint investigation into the journalist's murder carried out by seven of Colombia's leading newspapers and news magazines, published in late February and early March.
The threats came after regional assemblyman Ferney Tapasco González was removed from office after authorities discovered that in the 1970s he had been convicted of selling military ration cards while serving as the mayor of Supia, Caldas Department, according to the investigation.
Sierra publicly backed the legal process to remove Tapasco González and also used his weekly column to revisit another incident in which the lawmaker was convicted of concealing information about the 1991 murder of a schoolteacher in Caldas, according to the investigation.
Since April 2001, Sierra had also been investigating possible links between Tapasco González and a gang of assassins. The former politician has denied involvement in the killing, and authorities said he is not under formal investigation.
On the same day Sierra was shot, police arrested 21-year-old Luis Fernando Soto Zapata, who later confessed to having shot Sierra and was sentenced on May 8 to 19-and-a-half years in prison.
Soto told the court that he shot Sierra on a whim after mistaking him for a man who allegedly killed a relative several years ago. However, a public prosecutor told CPJ that he doubts the claim, pointing out that footage from a hidden police camera shows Soto lingering for more than two hours before the shooting at the spot where Sierra was killed.
In addition to Soto, police arrested Luis Arley Ortiz on the day Sierra was shot. Authorities released Ortiz soon after but issued a warrant for his arrest again in May, alleging that he acted as a middleman between a gang of assassins and the person or people who allegedly ordered Sierra's death. Authorities said they have not been able to find him and believe he has been killed.
On July 17, authorities charged Francisco Antonio Quintero Tabares with homicide for Sierra's killing. Quintero is believed to be the boss of the gang of hit men that allegedly included Soto. Authorities have been questioning Quintero but have yet to learn anything new, the spokesperson from the Public Prosecutor's Office said.
Héctor Sandoval, RCN Televisión, April 12, 2002, outside of Cali
Sandoval, a cameraman with RCN Televisión, died of gunshot wounds sustained while covering an April 11 firefight between the Colombian army and leftist rebels.
Walter López, who was driving Sandoval and his crew, was also shot and killed during the firefight, said Rocío Arias, executive producer of RCN Televisión news.
The journalists came under fire on April 11 at around 1:45 p.m. in a mountainous region outside the southwestern city of Cali where the army was pursuing fighters from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The rebels had just kidnapped 13 provincial lawmakers and four aides and were apparently seeking refuge when the army launched an operation to free the captives.
The crew had decided to leave when an army helicopter hovering above opened fire on their vehicle, said Juan Bautista Díaz, a free-lance photographer working for Semana newsmagazine. The letters "RCN" were marked in large, bright colors on the roof and both sides of the vehicle, according to both Arias and Bautista.
A bullet pierced the roof and tore through López's arm and into his body. According to Bautista, he appeared to have died instantly, but his colleagues were trying to apply a tourniquet when the army helicopter resumed fire. They were forced to flee for cover in a nearby ravine, said Bautista.
The journalists then tried to signal the helicopter for help by waving white T-shirts in the air. Fifteen minutes after López was shot, a bullet from the helicopter ripped through Sandoval's left leg, said Bautista.
Continued fighting forced Bautista, Sandoval, and RCN correspondent Luz Estela Arroyave to hide in the ravine for about two hours before journalists from a local newspaper who had also come to cover the fighting took them to a hospital. Sandoval died several hours after arriving at the hospital due to significant blood loss from the bullet wound.
Though the army has opened an investigation into the killings, no progress was reported at year's end, according to an army spokesperson in Cali.
The FARC later freed one of the lawmakers and four aides.
Efraín Varela Noriega, Radio Meridiano-70, June 28, 2002, Arauca
Varela, the owner of Radio Meridiano-70, was shot and killed in northeastern Colombia.
The journalist, who had recently alerted the public to the presence of paramilitary fighters in the region, was driving home from a university graduation in Arauca Department in the afternoon when gunmen yanked him from his car and shot him in the face and chest, said Col. Jorge Caro, acting commander of Arauca's police.
Varela hosted two polemical news and opinion programs for the station in the town of Arauca and criticized all sides fighting in Colombia's civil conflict, according to José Gutiérrez, who co-hosted an afternoon program called "Let's Talk Politics" with Varela.
A few days before the killing, Varela had told listeners during his morning news show that fighters from the paramilitary United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) had arrived in Arauca, which is on the border with Venezuela, and were patrolling the town's streets, according to Gutiérrez.
Tensions have been building in the oil-rich area since early June, when the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) began threatening to kill civil servants in the region who refused to resign. The rebels are battling the paramilitary army for control over lucrative territory not only in Arauca but throughout the country.
Three years ago, Varela's name appeared on a list of people that the paramilitary army had declared military targets, said acting police commander Caro, adding that authorities were investigating rumors that the AUC was responsible for the killing. Caro, a frequent listener of the station, said that Varela seemed to reserve his sharpest criticism for the paramilitaries.
A spokesperson for the Public Prosecutor's Office told CPJ in mid-December that authorities have issued an arrest warrant for a paramilitary commander believed to have been involved in the killing. The spokesperson said it wasn't known when the warrant was issued and refused to reveal the name of the paramilitary leader for fear of jeopardizing the search for him.
Varela, who was in his early 50s, was also the secretary of a provincial peace commission as well as its former president, said Evelyn Varela, his 28-year-old daughter and Radio Meridiano-70's manager. In recent months, Varela had begun warning his only child that his life could be in danger. "He had us prepared for the worst," his daughter said.
INDIA: 1
Ram Chander Chaterpatti, Poora Sach, November 21, 2002, Sirsa
Chaterpatti, editor of the Hindi-language newspaper Poora Sach, died in a New Delhi hospital of injuries sustained in an assassination attempt made a month earlier.
On October 24, a gunman fired several shots at Chaterpatti, a journalist based in Sirsa, a town in the northern state of Haryana. Chaterpatti was taken to an area hospital but was later transferred to the Apollo Hospital in New Delhi.
Police arrested three suspects, including the alleged gunman and a leader of the Sirsa-based religious sect Dera Sacha Sauda, according to the Press Trust of India news agency. Officials said that Dera Sacha Sauda members are believed to have ordered Chaterpatti's murder in reprisal for the journalist's reporting on sexual abuse and other crimes allegedly committed at the group's compound in Sirsa.
A delegation of journalists, including the president of the regional journalists' group Haryana Patrakar Sangh and representatives of India's National Union of Journalists, met with the director general of police in Haryana on the day of Chatterpatti's death, November 21, to press authorities to bring the journalist's killers to justice. The delegation also complained that several journalists in the area have received death threats for reporting on the activities of Dera Sacha Sauda.
NEPAL: 1
Nava Raj Sharma, Kadam, June 1, 2002, Kalikot
Sharma, editor of the Nepali-language weekly Kadam, was kidnapped by Maoist rebels on June 1 and later killed, according to a team of journalists and human rights activists organized by the government's National Human Rights Commission (NHRC). The NHRC visited Kalikot District, where Sharma lived, as part of an August mission to Nepal's remote midwestern region. The group learned of his murder from local residents and police.
Nepal's Maoist rebels, who have been fighting a guerrilla war since 1996 to overthrow the country's constitutional monarchy, control portions of the country, including much of Kalikot and neighboring districts.
Maoist fighters kidnapped Sharma from the Kalikot District village of Syuna on June 1, according to members of the NHRC team. The national English-language newspaper The Kathmandu Post reported that police recovered Sharma's badly mutilated body from the area in mid-August. Rebels had gouged out his eyes, cut his hands and legs, and shot him in the chest, police told the NHRC team.
Sharma, who lived in the village of Sipkhana, which is adjacent to Syuna, was known as an independent journalist. He had been working at Kadam since 1998 and was formerly the editor of the local newspaper Karnali Sandesh, according to the Kathmandu-based Center for Human Rights and Democratic Studies (CEHURDES). A CEHURDES representative was part of the NHRC team that visited the area.
Sharma was also a local schoolteacher, but local press sources said it appeared that he was targeted for his journalism. One journalist said that Sharma had refused pressure from the rebels to turn Kadam into a Maoist propaganda organ.
PAKISTAN: 2
Daniel Pearl, The Wall Street Journal, date unknown, Karachi
U.S. government officials confirmed on February 21 that Pearl, kidnapped South Asia correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, had been killed by his captors.
The exact date of his murder was uncertain, but authorities announced his death after receiving a graphic, three-and-a-half minute digital videotape containing scenes in which one of the killers slits Pearl's throat, and then someone holds his severed head. The faces of the assailants are not visible on the video, according to news reports.
Pearl, 38, went missing on January 23 in the port city of Karachi, Pakistan, and was last seen on his way to an interview at the Village Restaurant, downtown near the Metropole Hotel. According to The Wall Street Journal, Pearl had been reporting on Richard Reid, a suspected terrorist who allegedly tried to blow up an airplane during a transatlantic flight with a bomb in his shoe.
Four days after his disappearance, a group calling itself "The National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty" sent an e-mail to several U.S.- and Pakistan-based news organizations claiming responsibility for kidnapping Pearl and accusing him of being an American spy. The e-mail also contained four photographs of the journalist, including one in which he is held at gunpoint and another in which he is holding a copy of the January 24 issue of Pakistan's Dawn newspaper.
The e-mail contained a series of demands, including the repatriation of Pakistani detainees held by the U.S. Army in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The sender or senders, who used a Hotmail e-mail account under the name "Kidnapperguy," said Pearl was "at present being kept in very inhuman circumstances quite similar infact [sic] to the way that Pakistanis and nationals of other sovereign countries are being kept in Cuba by the American Army."
Another e-mail was sent on January 30, also including photographs of Pearl held captive. This e-mail accused him of being an agent of Mossad, Israel's spy agency, and said he would be killed within 24 hours unless the group's demands were met.
After scrutinizing the videotape that officials received weeks later, authorities believe that Pearl may have been murdered before the second e-mail was sent. During that footage, Pearl is forced to identify himself as Jewish and to deliver scripted lines reiterating some of the demands made in the e-mails, according to an FBI analysis of the tape that was provided to the Journal.
On February 12, before Pearl's murder was discovered, Pakistani police announced the arrest of Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, whom they identified as the prime suspect behind the journalist's kidnapping.
On March 14, a U.S. grand jury indicted Saeed, charging him with hostage-taking and conspiracy to commit hostage-taking resulting in Pearl's murder. U.S. prosecutors also unsealed a secret indictment filed against Saeed in November 2001 accusing him of participating in the 1994 kidnapping of U.S. tourist Bela Nuss in India. Pakistan refused to extradite Saeed, possibly to avoid damaging disclosures of links between the country's intelligence agencies and militant Islamist groups that the United States wants to see eliminated.
In April, Saeed and three accomplices—Salman Saqib, Fahad Naseem, and Shaikh Adil—were charged with Pearl's kidnapping and murder before Pakistan's special anti-terrorism court. The trial, initially convened at Karachi's Central Jail and later moved to a heavily guarded prison in Hyderabad due to security concerns, was closed to journalists and the public.
In mid-May, as the trial was under way, police found a dismembered body believed to be Pearl's buried in the outskirts of Karachi on property owned by the Al-Rashid Trust, an Islamic charity that the United States has accused of funneling money to al-Qaeda. Police were reportedly led to the shallow grave by Fazal Karim, a member of the banned militant Sunni Muslim group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. At year's end, Karim had not been charged, and though it has been widely reported that he was detained, authorities have never officially acknowledged his arrest.
On July 15, the anti-terrorism court announced that Saeed and his accomplices were guilty of Pearl's kidnapping and murder. Saeed, who was accused of masterminding the crime, was sentenced to death by hanging; Saqib, Naseem, and Adil each received 25-year prison sentences. They have appealed the ruling, and the case was still pending at year's end.
Shortly after the ruling, U.S. officials announced DNA test results confirming that the body found in May was indeed Pearl's.
In mid-August, The Associated Press (AP) published a detailed account of Pearl's kidnapping, citing two investigators who spoke on condition of anonymity. The officials said that, according to Karim (who had led police to the journalist's body in May) and two others held in unofficial custody, Pearl was shot and wounded on the sixth day of his capture when he tried to escape and was murdered on the ninth day. The AP identified the two other detainees as Zubair Chishti and Naeem Bukhari, who is also known as Attaur Rehman and is a leader of the sectarian group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. The men also said that three Arabs, possibly from Yemen, were brought to the hideout on the ninth day, and that they were involved in filming and carrying out the execution.
Karim later identified one of the Yemenis among those arrested in a September 11, 2002, raid in Karachi, during which U.S. and Pakistani authorities detained several suspected al-Qaeda members, including Ramzi Binalshibh, allegedly a senior al-Qaeda leader who has claimed a central role in coordinating the September 11 attacks.
The Washington Post reported that Karim and Bukhari "have told police that the man who slit Pearl's throat was Khalid Sheik Mohammed," whom U.S. intelligence officials have identified as the current head of al-Qaeda's military operations. U.S. officials have told journalists that Mohammed was not among those captured in the Karachi raids, and that his current status is unclear. He had appeared with Binalshibh in a pre-recorded interview broadcast by the Qatar-based Arabic-language satellite channel Al-Jazeera to coincide with the anniversary of the September 11 attacks.
A former U.S. intelligence officer, Robert Baer, told the United Press International (UPI) news agency that he had given Pearl information about Mohammed, and that he believes it was the journalist's investigations of Mohammed that may have cost him his life. Baer, who worked for the Central Intelligence Agency for more than 20 years in Asia and the Middle East and wrote the book See No Evil, which criticizes the CIA, told UPI, "I have heard from [intelligence] people who follow this closely that it was people close to Mohammed that killed him, if it wasn't Mohammed himself."
UPI quoted a Wall Street Journal spokesperson as saying that, "Everything we know from before and after Danny's murder indicates his reporting effort focused on [alleged shoe bomber] Richard Reid."
Shahid Soomro, Kawish, October 20, 2002, Kandhkot
Soomro, a correspondent for the Sindhi-language newspaper Kawish, was assassinated in the town of Kandhkot, Sindh Province, apparently in reprisal for his reporting on abuses committed during general elections held on October 10.
At around midnight on October 20, three men went to Soomro's home and tried to abduct him, according to his younger brother Aziz, who witnessed the crime. When Soomro resisted, the men shot him dead. Kawish editor Ali Kazi said that Soomro had at least nine bullet wounds and died almost instantly.
The gunmen escaped with two accomplices in a white car waiting outside Soomro's house, said local news reports.
Aziz filed a case with police identifying three of the assailants by name, Wahid Ali Bijarani, Mohammad Ali Bijarani, and Mohammad Siddiq.
Wahid Ali and Mohammad Ali, who are brothers, are members of the powerful Bijarani family, which owns much land in the area around Kandhkot and exercises considerable influence through the feudal system still prevalent in much of Pakistan. A third brother, Mir Mehboob Bijarani, was elected to the Sindh Provincial Assembly in the October 10 poll, while an uncle, Mir Hazzar Khan Bijarani, won a seat in the National Assembly. (Both represent exiled former prime minister Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party.)
Soomro's colleagues suspect that he was killed for his reporting about alleged abuses committed by Bijarani family members and supporters during the general elections. Soomro had a reputation for courageous, independent reporting, and his publication, Kawish, is one of the most influential newspapers in Sindh Province.
On October 24, police announced that Wahid Ali Bijarani, Mohammad Ali Bijarani, and Mohammad Siddiq, the three suspects identified by the journalist's family, had been detained for questioning. At year's end, the three men remained in custody but had not been charged.
The Bijarani family has not commented publicly on the allegations.
PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY TERRITORIES: 3
Raffaele Ciriello, free-lance, March 13, 2002, Ramallah
Ciriello, an Italian free-lance photographer who was on assignment for the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, was killed by Israeli gunfire in the West Bank city of Ramallah, according to press reports and eyewitness testimony. Ciriello was the first foreign journalist killed while covering the current Palestinian uprising, which began in September 2000. The photographer died after being hit by a burst of machine gun fire from the direction of an Israeli tank during an Israeli military offensive in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Amedeo Ricucci of the Italian television station Rai Uno told CPJ that he and his cameraman were accompanying Ciriello and trailing a group of Palestinian gunmen at the time of the incident. Ricucci said the area was quiet and was located roughly 500 yards (455 meters) to a half-mile (0.8 kilometers) from a nearby refugee camp where fighting between Israelis and Palestinians was taking place.
The three journalists were standing inside a building off an alleyway, Ricucci said. Shortly afterward, a tank emerged at one end of the street 150 to 200 yards (135 to 180 meters) away, he said. Ciriello left the building and pointed his camera at the tank. He then came under fire without warning. Ciriello was shot six times and died of his wounds soon after.
At least one Palestinian gunman was in Ciriello's vicinity at the time of the shooting, according to press reports. The Italian government has demanded a full investigation into the attack.
After Ciriello's death, an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson was unable to provide details about the circumstances of the shooting and claimed to have no information about the presence of journalists in Ramallah, which the IDF said was a closed military area at the time. The IDF added that journalists who entered the area were "endangering" themselves.
In late August, the IDF announced that it had concluded an investigation into the incident and said that there was "no evidence and no knowledge of an [army] force that fired in the direction of the photographer."
Imad Abu Zahra, free-lance, July 12, 2002, Jenin
Abu Zahra, a Palestinian free-lance photographer who also worked as a fixer and interpreter for foreign journalists, died after being hit by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) gunfire in the West Bank town of Jenin.
According to sources in Jenin, residents had gone into the city center on July 11 after Israeli forces lifted a curfew that had been in effect since June 21. Abu Zahra's colleague Said Dahla, a photographer for the official Palestinian news agency WAFA, told CPJ that at around 2 p.m., the sound of tanks coming toward the area led residents to flee or take cover inside nearby businesses or residences.
Together, Dahla and Abu Zahra went into the middle of Faisal Street to photograph an Israeli armored personnel carrier (APC) that had slammed into an electricity pole there. Dahla said that he and Abu Zahra were alone in the street at this point facing two Israeli tanks (near the APC), which he estimated to be about 40 meters (45 yards) in front of them.
Both men were holding cameras, according to Dahla, and Dahla wore a flak jacket clearly marked "Press." Dahla said that Abu Zahra also wore a cloth vest that identified him as a member of the press.
According to Dahla, moments after the two began taking photographs, gunfire erupted from the tanks. Dahla, who was hit in the leg with bullet shrapnel, said that he looked over and saw that Abu Zahra had been injured in his thigh and was bleeding profusely.
Dahla said that as they tried to take shelter in a nearby building, the tanks continued to fire on them. Dahla told CPJ that the two journalists remained in the building entrance, unable to get to a hospital. He estimates that more than 25 minutes passed before Abu Zahra was helped into a taxi and taken to Jenin Hospital, where he died on July 12.
According to an Israeli army spokesperson, after the APC hit the electricity pole on the afternoon of July 11, a mob attacked the personnel carrier with Molotov cocktails and rocks, and people in the crowd fired on the tanks. The spokesperson said the soldiers in the tanks responded by firing back at the source of the gunfire.
However, witnesses who were at the city center at the time told CPJ that residents did not attack the tanks until after the two journalists had been shot. Photos of the stranded APC taken by Dahla before the shooting show no signs of clashes or hostile action near the carrier. Moreover, there were no other reports of people injured by gunfire in Jenin that day.
Issam Tillawi, Voice of Palestine, September 22, 2002, Ramallah
Tillawi, a journalist and program host for the official Palestinian Authority radio station Voice of Palestine (VOP), was killed after being shot in the head by Israeli gunfire during protests in the West Bank city of Ramallah. The incident occurred late in the evening around Ramallah's Manara Square.
According to Palestinian sources, Tillawi was both covering and participating in Palestinian demonstrations that had erupted there in protest of the Israeli army's siege of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's headquarters. Journalists and VOP officials said that Tillawi was equipped with a tape recorder and a jacket marked "press."
An Israel Defense Forces spokesperson was quoted as saying at the time that Tillawi was among the rioters and was not distinguishable as a reporter.
PHILIPPINES: 2
Edgar Damalerio, Zamboanga Scribe and DXKP Radio, May 13, 2002, Pagadian City
Damalerio, managing editor of the weekly newspaper Zamboanga Scribe and a commentator on DXKP radio station in Pagadian City on the southern island of Mindanao, was shot and killed at about 8:00 p.m.
A gunman shot Damalerio, 32, while he was driving home in his jeep from a press conference in Pagadian City. He was killed by a single bullet wound to his left torso.
On May 16, local police superintendent Asuri Hawani announced that police had identified and filed charges against an alleged hit man named Ronie Quilme based on an eyewitness' account. But the two witnesses riding in Damalerio's jeep, Edgar Amoro and Edgar Ongue, identified the gunman as local police officer Guillermo Wapile. Although an investigator from the National Bureau of Investigation said his office had recommended as early as May 17 that local prosecutors arrest Wapile, the suspect was not formally arrested. Instead, he was placed in the custody of his boss, Hawani, under "restricted supervision" with his fellow police officers. He was not formally charged, and could move freely in Pagadian City. According to news reports, he was seen in town stalking the witnesses and their family members during 2002.
CPJ believes that Damalerio, known for his critiques of corruption among local politicians and the police, was killed for his journalistic work. According to local news reports, the journalist had criticized Hawani on his radio show for his alleged involvement with drug traffickers and crime syndicates.
The day of Damalerio's murder, his wife alerted him that she had noticed two men "casing the house," according to a report in the Philippine Daily Inquirer by Hernan de la Cruz, publisher of the Zamboanga Scribe. Damalerio called his wife 30 minutes before he was killed to let her know that he was on his way home. The journalist advised her to "just close the door and lock the gate. Be careful."
A few hours before Damalerio was shot, an employee of the Zamboanga Scribe reported receiving a number of mysterious anonymous telephone calls. On May 14, the day after the journalist's death, an unidentified male made threatening phone calls to the newspaper warning that publisher de la Cruz may be next. (De la Cruz now has a uniformed army soldier as his bodyguard.)
On August 10, a possible third witness in the case, a member of a local civilian militia named Juvy Lovitaño, was murdered. He had recently contacted the National Bureau of Investigation to report that a local police officer had approached him to take out a contract on Damalerio's life.
In August 2002, CPJ conducted an in-depth investigation into Damalerio's murder and met with government officials, including Interior Secretary Joey Lina, to try to move prosecution efforts forward. Lina, who dismissed Pagadian police chief Asuri Hawani after Damalerio's assassination for "covering up the crimes of his men," has ordered a special investigation into the murder.
Amoro and Ongue, the two witnesses riding in the car with Damalerio when he was shot, were under threat and went into the witness protection program. Fearing death threats against her and her baby boy, Damalerio's widow, Gemma, went into hiding in another province under the protection program. Despite the risks for their own safety, Damalerio's family and colleagues continued to pressure regional authorities for justice.
On January 30, 2003, the Pagadian City regional trial court ordered Wapile's arrest. Wapile had been temporarily reassigned at the time to Camp Abelon in Pagadian City, where he was supposed to be restricted to the premises under the supervision of the Philippine National Police (PNP) Provincial Director Pedrito Reye.
Apparently tipped off, Wapile managed to escape and evaded arrest for more than a year. In mid-2004, with a missing suspect and no leads, the case became "dormant" and Damlerio's widow, Amoro and Ongue lost their protection despite ongoing threats.
International and domestic pressure to solve the Damalerio murder case increased until Wapile surrendered to authorities on murder charges on September 13, 2004. He pleaded not guilty to the murder charges on September 24, 2004.
But Wapile's arrest did not end the reign of terror for the eyewitnesses and family members. On February 5, 2005, gunmen shot and killed Amoro while he was leaving Zamboanga del Sur National High School where he worked as a teacher. Two of the three eyewitnesses to Damalierio's murder have been murdered to keep them from testifying in court.
In a February 14 ruling, the Supreme Court granted the request of Damalerio's widow to transfer the trial from Pagadian City to the more neutral Cebu City, 350 miles south of Manila. The Supreme Court also ordered the Cebu City court to ensure a speedy trial.
Prison authorities were ordered to transfer Wapile from Pagadian City to Cebu City and ensure security to prevent another escape. There is still no official start date for the trial. According to local journalists, the prosecution is modifying its case, possibly to include charges against former Pagadian City Police Chief Azuri Hawani.
Gemma Damalerio, Amoro's widow, and Edgar Ongue are back in the witness protection program.
Sonny Alcantara, "Quo Vadis San Pablo" and Kokus, August 22, 2002, San Pablo
Alcantara, a newspaper publisher and cable TV commentator, was shot dead in the city of San Pablo, south of the capital, Manila.
A lone gunman shot the journalist in the forehead while he was riding a motorcycle near his home, police investigators told CPJ. Investigators said they believe that at least one accomplice informed the gunman by cell phone of Alcantara's departure from his home at about 10 a.m.
San Pablo journalists told CPJ that Alcantara had recently broken a story on his cable TV program, "Quo Vadis San Pablo," implicating a local politician in a corrupt land deal. Alcantara was also the publisher of Kokus, a weekly newspaper that covered politics and community affairs. According to Alcantara's wife, colleagues had warned the journalist to be careful in his reporting on local government officials.
Police agree that Alcantara, 51, may have been killed because of his work as a journalist. "He was a very vocal commentator," San Pablo police chief Ernesto Cuizon told CPJ. "We can't discount that he was killed because of his journalism." Though investigators told CPJ that they know the identity of the suspected assailant and have circulated a sketch of the man, who is believed to be a hired killer, no one had been charged with the murder by year's end.
RUSSIA: 3
Natalya Skryl, Nashe Vremya, March 9, 2002, Rostov-on-Don
Skryl, a business reporter working for the Nashe Vremya newspaper in the city of Rostov-on-Don in southwestern Russia, died from head injuries sustained during an attack the previous evening.
Late on the night of March 8, Skryl was returning to her home in the town of Taganrog, just outside Rostov-on-Don, when she was attacked from behind and struck in the head about a dozen times with a heavy, blunt object.
Neighbors called an ambulance and the police after hearing her scream. Skryl was found unconscious just outside her home and taken to Taganrog Hospital, where she died the following day.
Skryl, 29, reported on local business issues for a newspaper owned by Rostov regional authorities. Just before her death, she was investigating an ongoing struggle for the control of Tagmet, a local metallurgical plant. Nashe Vremya editor-in-chief Vera Yuzhanskaya believes that Skryl's death was related to her professional activities, the ITAR-TASS news agency reported.
Since opening an investigation shortly after the murder, officials have changed their theories several times. Initially, the prosecutor's office said that because Skryl was carrying jewelry and a large sum of cash that were not taken at the time of her murder, robbery could be ruled out as a motive.
But on July 24, the Taganrog Directorate of Internal Affairs announced that robbery was the motive, and that the crime was unrelated to her journalistic activities, the Ekho Rosotova radio station reported.
Taganrog authorities switched their story yet again on September 5, Nashe Vremya editor-in-chief Vera Yuzhanskaya told CPJ, when they closed the murder investigation without officially identifying the reason for the murder.
Grigory Bochkarov, a local analyst in Rostov-on-Don for the Moscow-based Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations, told CPJ that the only credible motive for Skryl's murder was her reporting about Tagmet and that police had emphasized the robbery motive in an effort to play down the significance of the case.
Just prior to her death, Skryl reportedly told several colleagues that she had recently obtained sensitive information about the Tagmet story and was planning to publish an article revealing this information.
Valery Ivanov, Tolyatinskoye Obozreniye, April 29, 2002, Togliatti
Ivanov, editor of the newspaper Tolyatinskoye Obozreniye in the southern Russian city of Togliatti, was shot dead outside his home at approximately 11 p.m.
Ivanov, 32, was shot eight times in the head at point-blank range while entering his car, a colleague at the newspaper told CPJ.
Eyewitnesses saw a 25- to 30-year-old man walk up to Ivanov's car and shoot him, according to local press reports and CPJ sources. The killer used a pistol with a silencer and fled the scene on foot.
Ivanov's colleagues believe the killing was connected to his work. Tolyatinskoye Obozreniye is well known for its reports on local organized crime, drug trafficking, and official corruption.
Ivanov also served as a deputy in the local Legislative Assembly.
Local police have opened a criminal investigation into the murder and are considering several possible motives, though the possibility that he was killed in retaliation for his writing remains the prime theory. At year's end, no further progress in the investigation had been reported.
Roddy Scott, Frontline, September 26, 2002, Galashki Region, Ingushetia
Roddy Scott, 31, a British free-lance cameraman working for Britain's Frontline television news agency, was killed in the Russian republic of Ingushetia. Russian soldiers found his body in Ingushetia's Galashki Region, near the border with Chechnya, following clashes between Russian forces and a group of Chechen fighters.
Scott had accompanied the Chechens as they crossed from Georgia into Russia, United Press International reported.
UGANDA: 1
Jimmy Higenyi, United Media Consultants and Trainers, January 12, 2002, Kampala
Higenyi, a student at the United Media Consultants and Trainers, was killed while covering a rally in the capital, Kampala, organized by the opposition Uganda Peoples' Congress. He had been assigned the story as part of his journalism coursework.
The government had banned the gathering under Article 269 of the constitution, which outlaws all political activity in the country. A few moments after a large group of people gathered at the rally's venue, the police fired into the crowd, hitting Higenyi. He died instantly.
The inspector general of police, Maj. Gen. Katumba Wamala, apologized for Higenyi's death and said that the police take full responsibility. But at year's end, no disciplinary action had been taken against the officers involved in the shooting.
VENEZUELA: 1
Jorge Ibraín Tortoza Cruz, 2001, April 11, 2002, Caracas
Tortoza, 48, a photographer for the Caracas daily 2001, was shot on the afternoon of April 11 while covering violent clashes between opposition demonstrators and government supporters in the capital, Caracas. He died later that evening.
The journalist, who was carrying his camera and wearing a vest identifying him as a member of the press, was standing on a corner near Caracas City Hall when he was shot in the head at around 4 p.m. He was then taken to José María Vargas Hospital and died at around 6 p.m.
The clashes came on the third day of a nationwide strike leading to a short-lived coup that ousted President Hugo Chávez Frías on April 11. He returned to power on April 14.
Several videos made public the following week did not show conclusively where the shots that killed the journalist had come from, or who fired them, according to local press reports. However, the Caracas Metropolitan Police released a video revealing that five gunmen were on the roof of the City Hall at the time of Tortoza's shooting.
None of the gunmen were in uniform, but two of them had on bulletproof vests. Other videos taken by amateur cameramen show more unidentified gunmen in adjacent buildings. Eyewitness accounts and videos implicate both the Venezuelan National Guard and the Caracas Metropolitan Police in the shooting.
Eurídice Ledezma, a Venezuelan journalist and political analyst, told CPJ that Tortoza was shot by a gunman she saw firing from the roof of City Hall.
Tortoza, a veteran photographer, had worked for 2001 since 1991. On April 25, about 300 reporters, photographers, and cameramen from both the private and state media held a march to pay homage to Tortoza. The journalists, who held posters with Tortoza's picture, demanded that those responsible for his death be punished, and that journalists be allowed to do their job without fear of reprisal.
During the events of April 11, at least 15 people were killed and dozens were injured, including four journalists.
By late October, the investigation into Tortoza's killing had stalled. According to the Venezuelan human rights organization PROVEA, there were conflicting reports as to which type of weapon had been used to shoot the journalist and from which direction the bullet came. No one has been charged with the murder.
ARMENIA: 1
Tirgran Nagdalian, Armenia Public Television, December 28, 2002, Yerevan
Nagdalian, the 36-year-old head of state-owned Armenian Public Television, was shot in the head as he was leaving his parents' home in Armenia's capital, Yerevan, on December 28. The journalist was rushed to a hospital, where he died during emergency surgery, according to press reports.
The motive for the murder remained unclear at year's end. Nagdalian, who also hosted a weekly news program on Armenian Public Television and worked for the U.S. governmentfunded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty from 1995 to 1997, was a strong supporter and friend of Armenian president Robert Kocharian.
Government officials believe that the murder was politically motivated, but some local media experts pointed to Nagdalian's lavish lifestyle and business interests as a possible explanation for his killing.
Armenian authorities have launched an investigation into the murder.
BANGLADESH: 1
Syed Farroque Ahmed, Pubali Barta, August 3, 2002, Srimangal
Police found the mutilated body of Ahmed, 50, on August 3, more than two months after he had disappeared, according to the press freedom groups Reporters Sans Frontières and the Bangladesh Center for Development Journalism and Communication (BCDJC). Ahmed was editor of the local Bengali-language publication Pubali Barta, published in the southeastern town of Srimangal. Police had no leads in the case, according to the BCDJC.
BELARUS: 1
Mykhailo Kolomyets, Ukrainski Novyny, October 30, 2002, Maladzechna
The body of Kolomyets, co-owner and director of the Kyiv, Ukrainebased Ukrainski Novyny news agency, was found on October 30 hanging from a tree in a forest in northwestern Belarus, near the city of Maladzechna, according to Ukrainski Novyny.
Kolomyets' colleagues said that they reported the journalist missing on October 28, after he had failed to come to work a week earlier. According to Ukrainian police, the journalist had traveled to neighboring Belarus on October 22. Lyubov Ruban, a friend of Kolomyets', said that the journalist called her that day and informed her that he was planning to commit suicide.
Although Kolomyets had received no known threats for his work, colleagues say that the journalist may have been targeted because of the agency's reputation for independent reporting, or because of the large financial stake he held in the company. Ukrainian authorities are investigating the case.
COLOMBIA: 5
Marco Antonio Ayala Cárdenas, El Caleño, January 23, 2002, Cali
Ayala, a photographer for El Caleño newspaper, was shot and killed by two assassins on a motorcycle while he was leaving a photo developing shop near the newspaper, authorities said.
Ayala, 43, died instantly after being shot in the head six times. He had worked at the newspaper in Cali, Colombia's third-largest city, for four years.
Even though Capt. Mónica Quiroz of the Cali Police Department said that there was no known motive for the attack, an El Caleño editor said Ayala might have been killed because of a photo published last December.
The editor, Luis Fernando García, reported that Ayala had taken a photo at the annual Cali Fair that inadvertently showed a local criminal figure with his mistress. Following the photograph's publication on December 23, 2001, the man's wife allegedly called Ayala requesting a copy. Ayala was leaving the developing shop with the photograph when he was gunned down, according to García.
Blanca María Torres, El Caleño's managing editor, told CPJ that the identity of the man in the photo is not clear.
In December, spokespersons for the Public Prosecutor's Office in Cali and Bogotá declined to discuss the case beyond saying that it was still under investigation.
Oscar Javier Hoyos Narváez, Radio Súper, June 6, 2002, outside Popayán
Hoyos, a Radio Super correspondent, was traveling with his older brother in a car outside Popayán, the capital of Cauca Department, when unidentified men in another vehicle stopped them and shot Hoyos twice in the chest, according to a bulletin from the Cauca Department Police. He died while being driven to a nearby hospital.
Hoyos had worked for Radio Super for five months covering the township of Sotará, about 12 miles (20 kilometers) south of Popayán, said John Jairo Uribe, a correspondent for the station. Hoyos had reported on violence, legislative and presidential elections, and community news, according to Uribe. He said Hoyos had received no known threats and described his reports as "impartial and positive."
An official at the Cauca Prosecutor's Office said that the crime is under investigation and declined to comment. Hoyos said some of his colleagues at the radio station suspect the gunmen might have been attempting to rob Hoyos. The journalist's brother could not be reached for comment.
Mario Prada Díaz, Horizonte del Magdalena Medio, July 12, 2002, Santander Department
The body of Prada, publisher of the monthly Horizonte del Magdalena Medio in the Santander Department in northeastern Colombia, was found riddled with gunshots not far from his home. A source told CPJ that Prada, 44, had been abducted from his house in the municipality of Sabana de Torres at 11 p.m. on July 11. The source said that it was not clear who killed Prada or why.
Prada had apparently received no threats. He had run the monthly Horizonte Sabanero for several years before changing its name to Horizonte del Magdalena Medio in June. The publication, which covered social and cultural issues, was not considered controversial.
But according to the daily Vanguardia Liberal, based in the city of Bucaramanga, the capital of Santander Department, Prada had written an editorial in Horizonte del Magdalena Medio's June issue criticizing the municipal government. Vanguardia Liberal also quoted a town representative as saying that Prada had held office in the local council at a time when the left-wing Patriotic Union (UP) ruled Sabana de Torres. Right-wing paramilitaries have killed thousands of UP members.
José Eli Escalante, La Voz de Cinaruco, October 28, 2002, Esmerelda
Escalante, a correspondent for the radio station La Voz de Cinaruco (Voice of Cinaruco) in the town of Esmeralda, Arauca Department, was shot and killed while returning home from his mother's gravesite, authorities told CPJ.
A spokesperson for the Arauca Department Police confirmed that the journalist was shot three times but was unable to provide further details about the murder because officials had lost the report on the crime.
Escalante had worked for eight years as a part-time correspondent for the station, said station news director José Domingo Pitta. The journalist, 55, covered community news in Esmereada but, according to Domingo, tried to avoid reporting on sensitive political topics and Colombia's civil conflict.
Escalante resigned from his position as an Esmeralda town councilman in July after the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) threatened to kill all of Colombia's elected municipal leaders unless they resigned, said Domingo. He told CPJ that Escalante had never been threatened personally.
According to Domingo, there are no suspects or a motive in the killing. Local investigators could not be reached for comment.
Both the FARC and the smaller leftist National Liberation Army, or ELN, are active in the region, but no armed group has taken responsibility for the killing.
Gimbler Perdomo Zamora, Panorama Estéreo, December 1, 2002, Gigante
Perdomo, news director and general manager of FM radio station Panorama Estéreo in the town of Gigante, was shot and killed while walking home with his wife, authorities told CPJ. The journalist was shot six times at 10 p.m. and died instantly. A bullet grazed his wife's face, but she was not seriously injured.
A police spokesperson said that two men and a woman were involved in the shooting but offered no motive. The murder is under investigation.
Perdomo, 32, hosted two news programs at the station but rarely commented on Colombia's civil conflict, political corruption, or other sensitive topics, said colleague Andres Garzón. Most of the station's other programming is devoted to music.
Perdomo occasionally received calls during his broadcast from listeners complaining about problems with municipal services and sometimes publicly encouraged local politicians to act, said Garzón.
Neither Perdomo nor the station had received threats before the killing. The journalist was a town councilman in Gigante for 10 years beginning in 1990. He chose not to run for re-election in 2001, according to Garzón.
Perdomo was also an administrator at a hotel and restaurant in Gigante.
The leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) is reportedly active in the region.
INDIA: 2
Paritosh Pandey, Jansatta Express, April 14, 2002, Lucknow
Pandey, a crime reporter for the Hindi-language daily Jansatta Express, was shot dead at point-blank range at around 10:30 p.m. in his home in the residential neighborhood of Gomtinagar, in Lucknow, according to police. At least six shots were fired at Pandey's head and chest, and he apparently died instantly.
Jansatta Express editor Ghanshyam Pankaj told CPJ that because Pandey was reporting regularly on criminal gangs, it is likely that he was targeted because of his professional work. However, he was uncertain which articles might have prompted the assassination.
Local journalists complained that Gomtinagar police responded slowly to Pandey's murder. Dozens of journalists staged an angry demonstration in the early morning hours of April 15, carrying Pandey's body to Raj Bhawan, the official residence of Uttar Pradesh governor Vishnu Kant Shastri.
During the demonstration, a security official hit Manish Srivastava, a reporter at the newspaper Dainik Jagran, with a rifle butt, causing serious injuries.
In July, the national English-language daily Times of India reported that a suspect arrested in connection with a separate murder admitted that he had helped arrange Pandey's assassination because the journalist had information about the people involved in the crime for which the gunman was originally detained. However, in late September, police arrested another individual who confessed involvement in Pandey's murder, but this person suggested that the killing was prompted by a personal dispute.
The motive behind the journalist's murder remained unclear at year's end.
Yambem Meghajit Singh, Northeast Vision, October 13, 2002, Manipur State
Late in the evening, Meghajit, chief correspondent in Imphal for the television production company Northeast Vision, was found dead, blindfolded with his hands tied. He had been beaten with bamboo sticks and shot in the head, according to local journalists. Imphal is the capital of Manipur State, in India's conflict-ridden Northeast region.
The local newspaper Manipur Mail reported that two men had summoned Meghajit at his home around 8:30 p.m. No group has claimed responsibility for the murder.
Local journalists said they do not know what might have motivated the killing. Meghajit was the chief correspondent in charge of filming in Manipur for Northeast Vision, which provides footage for channels including Imphal Cable Television and the national network Doordarshan. However, colleagues at the Manipur Electronic Media Journalists Union, of which Meghajit was vice president, said his work had not been particularly controversial.
Meghajit was also a dealer in semiprecious stones, and some journalists speculate that he was killed in connection with this business.
NEPAL: 2
Ambika Timsina, Janadesh, Date unknown, Morang
Timsina's corpse was found on December 12, 2002, about one kilometer (1.6 miles) from his house in eastern Nepal's Morang district, according to the Kathmandu-based Center for Human Rights and Democratic Studies. His body had bullet wounds.
Timsina had worked for the pro-Maoist weekly Janadesh before going underground soon after the government declared a state of emergency in November 2001. In fall 2002, he surrendered to government security forces.
Although the motive for Timsina's murder is not clear, CPJ sources in Nepal believe he may have been killed by Maoist rebels, who suspected him of acting as an informant to the government after his surrender.
In November 2001, the government declared a state of emergency and introduced a sweeping anti-terrorism ordinance, which allows for the arrest of anyone "in contact with" or "supportive of" the Maoist faction of the Communist Party of Nepal, which the government has identified as a terrorist group. More than 100 journalists have been detained under the ordinance, including several Janadesh editors and reporters.
Maoists have also been responsible for attacks on journalists. Rebels killed newspaper editor Nava Raj Sharma in June, and later claimed that they murdered him because he was a government spy.
Krishna Sen, Janadisha, Kathmandu, May 27, 2002
ADDED: March 30, 2005
Sen, editor of Janadisha, a publication closely associated with the Maoist rebels, was arrested by police on May 20, 2002 under the provisions of a sweeping antiterrorism ordinance introduced in November 2001 that criminalized any contact with or support for Maoist rebels.
An initial investigation by CPJ indicated that Sen might have been targeted for his journalism. Maoists have since said that Sen was a committee member, which would have made him privy to decisions made by rebel leadership.
The editor's arrest was widely reported in the local press. However, after news reports emerged in late June 2002 that Sen may have been killed while in police custody, a government-appointed commission said it found no evidence that he had ever been detained. Officials have since denied responsibility for Sen's disappearance.
Local human rights group Informal Sector Service Center (INSEC) has reported that Sen was held for approximately one week and died after being tortured at the Mahendra Police Club in Kathmandu. His body has never been found.
CPJ included Sen on lists of journalists imprisoned in 2002 and 2003 based on information available at the time. Based on subsequent research, CPJ reclassified his case in March 2005.
RUSSIA: 1
Sergei Kalinovsky, Moskovsky Komsomolets—Smolensk, Date unknown, Smolensk
The body of 26-year-old Kalinovsky, editor-in-chief of the daily Moskovsky Komsomolets—Smolensk, was found on April 1 beside a lake outside the city of Smolensk in central Russia.
Kalinovsky, who reported on local politics and crime for the Smolensk edition of the Moscow daily Moskovsky Komsomolets and the local SCS television station, disappeared on the evening of December 14, 2001.
Local police have opened a criminal investigation and are considering several possible motives for the murder, but no suspects had been detained by year's end.
In March 2001, Kalinovsky's apartment was damaged by a fire that he suspected was set in retaliation for his work, according to online news service NTVRU.COM. Local investigators, however, ruled out arson as a cause.