(CALP/IFEX) – Mourad Belkacem, a journalist with Canal Algérie, the ENTV public television station’s satellite channel, has been assassinated. The journalist’s body was found at his home in Algiers on 26 July 2002, at approximately 10:00 p.m. (local time). According to the official APS agency, the journalist was “killed with a sharp weapon” and “his […]
(CALP/IFEX) – Mourad Belkacem, a journalist with Canal Algérie, the ENTV public television station’s satellite channel, has been assassinated. The journalist’s body was found at his home in Algiers on 26 July 2002, at approximately 10:00 p.m. (local time).
According to the official APS agency, the journalist was “killed with a sharp weapon” and “his body was found in a closet, with his feet and hands tied up and several stab wounds to his head.”
According to several sources, the victim’s apartment was ransacked and his vehicle was stolen. According to information obtained from various Algerian journalists, documents were also reportedly stolen from the journalist’s home, located only a few hundred metres from ENTV’s headquarters.
Belkacem, aged 42, was married and the father of two children.
The assassination has caused serious distress in the journalism community. Journalists had started to live and work relatively normally following a period of extraordinary violence between 1993 and 1997, when almost 70 journalists and some 40 media workers were assassinated. Most of the killings were attributed to armed Islamic extremists.
It comes as no surprise that Algerian journalists are questioning the motives behind Belkacem’s murder. Many are wondering whether this was a politically-motivated killing or a common crime. On 27 July, no new information was available to confirm either hypothesis.
