Driver and guard of editor Iraqi killed

The former Iraqi editor of an American-funded newspaper said today his driver and bodyguard were abducted and murdered, hours after police warned him of a possible kidnapping plot.

Ismael Zayer was the editor-in-chief of the Coalition Provisional Authority-backed newspaper Al-Sabah until May 3, when he quit to set up his own publication.

After the police warning this morning, Zayer said he stayed in his home for about 20 minutes and then left his home “to find that my car, the driver, my bodyguard and the other four cars had disappeared.”

Iraqi police later found their bodies in Baghdad’s Raghiba Khatoon area, he said.

Zayer said: “It is a cowardly crime committed by criminals who will pay for their ugly action. If they think they can terrorise us by this, then they are wrong.”

Al-Sabah was set up by US officials with funding from the Pentagon soon after the Saddam regime collapsed last year. Many Iraqis have considered it the mouthpiece of the US-led coalition, along with the US-funded television station Al-Iraqiya.

Much of the staff left the paper along with Zayer to launch a new paper called Al-Sabah Al-Jedid (“The New Morning”) because of what they considered US interference in the running of the newspaper.