An award-winning Polish television
journalist and an Algerian colleague were killed
Friday in a drive-by shooting in Iraq, their
driver said and their employer, Poland's TVP
television, confirmed.
Waldemar Milewicz, 48, and his picture editor,
Mounir Bouamrane, 36, had just arrived in the
country and were driving to the Polish military
base at Babylon south of Baghdad when they were
killed, according to diplomatic sources in Warsaw.
A Polish cameraman, Jerzy Ernst, was also
wounded in the attack on their nondescript family
car at Latifiya, 30 kilometres (20 miles) south of
Baghdad.
Their Iraqi driver, Assir Kamel al-Kazzaz, said
gunmen closed in from behind in a car and raked
their vehicle with gunfire, killing Milewicz in
the back seat.
The victims' car spun before coming to a halt.
The gunmen then turned their vehicle round and
fired on the others who had got out, killing
Bouamrane and injuring the cameraman.
A passing police car picked up Ernst and took
him to hospital after the incident, which happened
around 9:30 am (0530 GMT).
Milewicz, who had been working for TVP since
1984, was a seasoned war correspondent who had
covered numerous conflicts including in the
Balkans, Chechnya, Cambodia and Rwanda.
His film "Chechnya: Six days of war" won a
journalism prize from Johns Hopkins University in
Baltimore in 1995. The previous year, the German
Marshall Fund had awarded him a prize for his
coverage of the Rwandan genocide.
He was designated reporter of the year in 2001
in Poland.
Bouamrane had worked for about 15 years for TVP
and had Polish and Algerian citizenship.
He leaves an Algerian wife and 12-year-old
daughter from a previous marriage to a Polish
woman who died.
Poland's prime minister designate, Marek Belka,
told a news conference in Warsaw that "the news of
the tragic death of Waldemar Milewicz has been
really very shocking to us".
Belka described Milewicz as "a symbol" of
journalism.
Ernst told TVP from his hospital bed the team
were attacked by gunmen who drove up close behind
their vehicle in a black, Japanese-made car.
"There was a long burst of fire at close
range," he said. "I turned and saw Waldek, who had
gone very pale and I realised that he was dead,"
he said, choking with emotion.
"The two others got out of the car and I went
with them holding my camera, but I could not move
quickly and that is when I was shot in the elbow,"
he said.
An AFP photographer helped flag down a pick-up
truck to put the bodies in and drove to the local
police station for an escort to take the bodies to
the hospital at Mahmudiya.
The shooting was in the area around Mahmudiya,
Iskandiriya and Latifiya where insurgents have
carried out a series of deadly ambushes since
killing seven Spanish intelligence agents there
last November.
A CNN reporter was killed in a similar ambush
in January on the same stretch of road.
In the past, insurgents have targeted only
four-wheel-drive sports utility vehicles, the
vehicle of choice for the US-led coalition and
civilian contractors working for it.
But the four men were driving in a black Daewoo
saloon, a typical four-door family car, of the
type that reporters use in an attempt to blend in
with Iraqis.
Up to 25 journalists have been killed since the
March 2003 invasion of Iraq, making it the most
dangerous place in the world to cover news, the
US-based Committee to Protect Journalists said on
Monday.
At least seven journalists -- and possibly as
many as nine -- were killed by gunfire from US
forces, while others, mostly Iraqi or non-Iraqi
Arabs, were detained and suffered mistreatment at
the hands of US forces, the committee said, as it
marked World Press Freedom Day.
"More than a year after the war in Iraq began,
the country remains the most dangerous place in
the world to work as a journalist," it said.
Reporters based in Iraq have to cope with
banditry, gunfire and bombings, while
anti-American insurgents have added a new threat
by systematically targeting foreigners, including
non-Iraqi journalists, and Iraqis who work for
them, it said.
At least six Iraqi media workers have been
murdered and several more have received threats
since the launch of the campaign, according to the
report.
Meanwhile, armed groups have abducted at least
eight journalists so far this year, the report
added.
British troops, Sadr militia
clash in southern Iraq