JEDDAH, 24 February 2006 — Three journalists working for Dubai’s Al-Arabiya satellite channel were kidnapped and murdered in Iraq Wednesday night sending another wave of shock, fear and sadness in the media industry.
“According to eyewitnesses and the official account given by the Iraqi security forces, armed individuals ambushed Atwar Bahjat and her colleagues Adnan Khairallah and Khalid Mahmoud while she was interviewing people on the outskirts of Samarra, kidnapped them and then killed them,” Al-Arabiya spokesman Jihad Ballout said by telephone from the satellite channel’s headquarters in Dubai.
“This is the official story but I don’t have anything to confirm or refute this,” he said.
The last live report filed by Atwar was on Wednesday night at 7 p.m. Dubai time and the last contact she had with the Dubai office was approximately a half-hour later. Around midnight, the Dubai office was informed about the death of the three journalists. Their bodies were identified and handed over to their families after completing all the necessary procedures.
“I hope the investigation is still ongoing. We urge the Iraqi authorities to continue investigating and identifying the culprits and bring them to justice,” said Ballout.
He said this was not the first time Al-Arabiya employees were attacked. “Previously five of our staff were killed in a car bomb in Baghdad and three others by the US forces.”
Naturally, these incidents have caused staff at Al-Arabiya to reconsider their security arrangements and ways of protecting their field reporters, Ballout said, and added that despite the tragedy Iraq would continue to be covered comprehensively by the network.
“We are committed to our professional role and in providing distinguished coverage to our viewers,” said Ballout. “Reporters are humans after all and they are subject to depression and anguish like anyone else under these circumstances. We would completely understand if any of our staff wanted to leave, but so far we have not received any such indications,” he said.
Al-Arabiya have been receiving condolences and expressions of condemnations from around the world from leaders including British Foreign Minister Jack Straw, Iraqi cleric Moqtada Sadr, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari, Lebanese Information Minister Ghazi Al-Oraidi, the International Committee of the Red Cross and Reporters Without Borders.
