Alerts

New York, November 19, 2002—An appeals court in the central Italian city of Perugia announced this week that it had convicted former prime minister Giulio Andreotti, 83, and sentenced him to 24 years in prison for ordering the murder of muckraking journalist Mino Pecorelli in 1979.

Pecorelli, who was preparing to publish compromising information about Andreotti, was gunned down on March 20, 1979, while sitting in his car in central Rome. A gunman using a pistol fitted with a silencer shot him once in the head and three times in the back.

New York, November 19, 2002—A body suspected to be that of Mykhailo Kolomyets, director of Ukrainski Novyny news agency, was found on October 30 hanging from a tree in a forest in northwestern Belarus, near the city of Maladzechna, said a news report that Ukrainski Novyny published today.

Kolomyets' colleagues at the news agency said that he did not show up for work on October 21, and that they reported him missing to law enforcement authorities a week later. According to Ukrainian police, the journalist had traveled to neighboring Belarus on October 22, where he telephoned a friend, Lyubov Ruban, who said that Kolomyets informed her that he was planning to commit suicide.

New York, November 18, 2002—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply concerned about recent attacks on Venezuelan journalists, the latest of which occurred yesterday at the 24-hour news channel Globovisión.

On Sunday, November 17, a bomb went off in the parking lot of Globovisión's offices, which are located in the eastern section of the capital, Caracas. According to local news reports, no one was injured, but three vehicles—one car belonging to a journalist and two Globovisión mobile units—were destroyed.

New York, November 13, 2002-Paul Kamara, the founding editor of one of Sierra Leone's leading newspaper, For Di People, was sentenced yesterday to six months in prison for defaming a local judge, said sources in the capital, Freetown.

Kamara was taken to Freetown's Pa Demba Road Prison on November 12 after the High Court convicted him on 18 counts of criminal libel under sections 26 and 27 of Sierra Leone's Public Order Act. The journalist was also fined US$2,100 for nine of the 18 counts, sources reported. On the remaining counts, Kamara can either pay a US$1,350 fine or serve an additional three months in jail.

New York, November 13, 2002-The board of directors and staff of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) are saddened by the death of Zimbabwean journalist Mark Chavunduka.

Chavunduka, 37, died on November 11 at West End Hospital in Zimbabwe's capital, Harare, according to his relatives. The cause of death is unknown, but friends and family said he had been in poor health for a long time and was checked into the hospital for severe dehydration.

New York, November 11, 2002—Yasser Abu Hilala, a columnist for Al-Rai newspaper and a former correspondent for Al-Jazeera satellite channel, and his cousin, Samir Abu Hilala, who writes for the daily Al-Arab al-Youm, were released today by Jordanian authorities after being held for 24 hours.

Yesterday, Jordanian police and intelligence agents detained Yasser Abu Hilala after raiding his home in the capital, Amman, at around 10 p.m. Officials searched his house and confiscated a laptop computer and some of his files. Yasser's arrest came soon after the journalist sent information to Al-Jazeera's Qatar headquarters about the current clashes taking place between government forces and Islamist militants in the southern Jordanian city of Maan.

New York, November 11, 2002—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) welcomes the recent decision by Mozambique's judicial authorities to extend their investigation into the murder of journalist Carlos Cardoso to Nymphine Chissano, a son of President Joaquim Chissano.

Cardoso, Mozambique's leading investigative reporter, was gunned down, execution-style, on November 22, 2000. Six people were arrested in March 2001 for the murder.

New York, November 7, 2002—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) welcomes yesterday's indictment in East Timor of two suspected murderers of Dutch journalist Sander Thoenes, who was killed in Dili on September 21, 1999, while he was reporting for The Financial Times and The Christian Science Monitor. Arrest warrants for both men, who are Indonesian military officers, are expected to be forwarded to the attorney general of Indonesia and to Interpol, which East Timor joined in October.

New York, November 6, 2002—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) welcomes the release of prominent Iranian journalist and reform politician Abdullah Nouri.

On Tuesday, November 5, Iranian authorities announced that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had commuted the remainder of Nouri's five-year prison term. The pardon came while Nouri was furloughed from prison to attend the funeral of his brother, who was killed last week in a car accident.