Eighteen months after Fred Nérac went missing in Iraq, Reporters Without Borders urges the UK to hand its inquiry report to the family

Reporters Without Borders has called on British defence minister Geoffroy Hoon to hand the British investigation report into the disappearance of French cameraman Fred Nérac, working for UK-based ITN television, to his wife Fabienne Nérac and to the French authorities. Nérac went missing on the second day of the war in Iraq, on 22 March 2003, after ITN's two-car convoy came under fire near Basra in the south killing veteran British television reporter Terry Lloyd. The international press freedom organisation made its request to Mr Hoon in a letter sent on 22 September and copied to French foreign minister Michel Barnier and British ambassador to France, Sir John Holmes. "As far as we know, the final report of the British Military Police investigation has not yet been supplied to the French authorities or to the family of Fred Nérac, who have a legitimate right to know its contents," Reporters Without Borders said. "We request that you send a full copy of this report as soon as possible to the French authorities and to Mrs Fabienne Nérac so as to keep them up to date with the latest developments in the inquiries", it added. Background: A funeral service was held today for Lebanese interpreter Hussein Osman, who went missing along with French cameraman Fred Nérac in southern Iraq on the second day of the invasion by coalition forces on 22 March 2003. Held in Baalbeck in eastern Lebanon, Osman's birthplace, the service was attended by a representative of Lebanese President Emile Lahoud, who presented the family with an honorary award. Osman and Nérac were members of a TV crew working for the British television news channel ITN who were travelling in two vehicles near Basra in southern Iraq when they came under fire from both Iraqi and US forces. British reporter Terry Lloyd was killed and Belgian cameraman Daniel Demoustier was wounded. ADN tests carried out by British military police finally established in June this year that Osman was also killed in this incident. But Nérac's fate has still not been established.