US troops 'mistook cameraman for Iraqi fighter'

A top Reuters cameraman was shot dead by American soldiers while filming outside a Baghdad prison targeted in a deadly mortar attack.

Mazen Dana, 41, was filming outside Abu Ghraib prison in western Baghdad yesterday when he was shot, the news agency said. A mortar attack there earlier killed six prisoners and wounded about 60 others.

The videotape in Dana’s camera showed two US tanks coming towards him. Two shots were fired, apparently from the tanks, and Dana fell to the ground. He was taken away by a US helicopter for treatment.

A US military official said Dana was shot by American soldiers who saw him from a distance and mistook him for an Iraqi guerrilla. When the soldiers came closer, they realised Dana was a journalist, the official said.

“Mazen was one of Reuters’ finest cameramen and we are devastated by his loss. He was a brave and an award winning journalist who had worked in many of the world’s hotspots,” Stephen Jukes, Reuters’ global head of news, said in a statement.

“He was committed to covering the story wherever it was and he was an inspiration to friends and colleagues at Reuters and throughout the industry.”

Dana’s death brings to 17 the number of journalists killed in Iraq since the war started on March 20.

An outspoken critic of the Israeli government’s treatment of journalists, Dana, a Palestinian, was honoured by the Committee to Protect Journalists with an International Press Freedom Award in November 2001 for his work covering conflict in his home town of Hebron in the West Bank. He was shot at least three times in 2000, according to the citation on the group’s Web site.

“Words and images are a public trust and for this reason I will continue with my work regardless of the hardships, even if it costs me my life,” Dana said after accepting the award.