Two journalists employed by Sunni TV station murdered in separate incidents

Reporters Without Borders today condemned the murders of two Baghdad TV journalists after being kidnapped in separate incidents in the past month. Owned by the (Sunni) Iraqi Islamic Party, Baghdad TV was the target of an armed attack just three months ago that killed two of its employees. “We are again deeply shocked by the news of these repeated attacks on the news media,” the press freedom organisation said. “Relatively little time elapsed between the attack on Baghdad TV's headquarters and the kidnap murders of two its journalists. We call on the Iraqi authorities to protect the most exposed journalists to avoid further tragedies.” In the attack on the TV station's headquarters on 5 April, a truck laden with explosives was driven at the building and then gunmen stormed inside and opened fire on employees, killing deputy director Thaer Ahmed Jabr and one of his assistants, Hussein Nizar. Nine other people were injured. Baghdad TV's correspondent in the Al-Yusufia region south of Baghdad, Mohammed Hilal Karji (photo), was kidnapped outside his home as he was about to go to work on 8 June. His body was found in the morgue the next day. Another of the station's journalists, Sarmad Hamdi Al-Hassani (photo), 43, was kidnapped at his home in the Baghdad neighbourhood of Al-Jami'a on 27 June. His body was also founded in the morgue the next day. Baghdad TV is run by Iraqi Vice-President Tareq al-Hashimi. As a result of the attack that destroyed its Baghdad premises, the TV station recent moved its headquarters to Sulaymaniyah, in Iraq's northern Kurdish region, which is safer for journalists. The bullet-riddled body of journalist Luay Suleiman was meanwhile found on 28 June in Mosul, 400 km north of Baghdad. Suleiman worked for Nineveh, a local newspaper published by the Christian group Bait Nahrain.