(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has voiced horror at the murder of Iraqi journalist Raeda Mohammed Wageh Wazzan, of the regional public television station Iraqiya. Wazzan was found dead on 25 February 2005, five days after she and her son were kidnapped by masked gunmen in downtown Mosul. “We are horrified by this vile murder, for which […]
(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has voiced horror at the murder of Iraqi journalist Raeda Mohammed Wageh Wazzan, of the regional public television station Iraqiya. Wazzan was found dead on 25 February 2005, five days after she and her son were kidnapped by masked gunmen in downtown Mosul.
“We are horrified by this vile murder, for which there is no justification, and we must stress yet again that journalists are neither belligerents nor bargaining chips,” RSF said.
The organisation added, “Our thoughts go out to Raeda Wazzan’s family, especially her husband and son.” Wazzan’s 10-year-old son was released by her abductors after three days. It was her husband, Salim Saad-Allah, who announced on 26 February that the body of Wazzan, 40, had been found the previous day. She was shot in the head.
The motive for her kidnapping is still unclear. There was a mortar attack on Iraqiya’s studios on 16 February in which three technicians were injured. Two days before that, Iraqiya producer Jamal Badrani was the target of a kidnapping attempt. The Associated press (AP) reported that information on the Internet indicated an armed Iraqi group linked to Al-Qaeda had claimed responsibility for Wazzan’s murder but there was no way of verifying the authenticity of the claim.
Wazzan was the 21st journalist to be kidnapped in Iraq since the start of the war in March 2003. She is the second to be murdered by her abductors, after Italian journalist Enzo Baldoni, who was assassinated in August 2004. Her death brings the number of journalists killed in Iraq since March 2003 to 33.
In a separate incident, on 25 February, Mohammad Sherif Ali, an Iraqi journalist working for the US-run, Arabic-language television station Al-Hurra, was badly wounded when gunmen fired on his car, in Iskandariyah, south of Baghdad. The journalist’s driver was killed in the attack.
