Journalist shot dead in Somalia
2006-06-23 13:59
Mogadishu - A Scandinavian journalist was shot and killed on Friday in the Somali capital while attending a demonstration organised by Islamic courts that seized Mogadishu this month, witnesses said.
Unknown gunmen shot the journalist, whose exact nationality could not be immediately confirmed, at a rally site in the southern part of the city, the witnesses told AFP.
"He was shot and killed while attending the rally," said Mohamed Amin, a Somali journalist who was at the scene.
"He died on the spot," Amin told AFP.
Another witness said the journalist had apparently been the victim of a sniper but details of the incident were sketchy.
The journalist was variously identified as being Danish or Swedish but was working for a Danish newspaper and was believed to have arrived in Mogadishu from Copenhagen, according to witnesses and staff at the Shamo Hotel where he was staying.
He had been in Mogadishu for at least a week, they said.
Cartoon uproar
Witnesses said the shooting appeared to have been linked the publication by a Danish newspaper last year of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed that enraged many in the Muslim world, including Somalia.
Mogadishu has been under the control of militia loyal to the city's Islamic courts since June 5 when they seized most of the capital, ousting a US-backed warlord alliance.
The killing is the first of a foreign journalist in the city since the shooting death of BBC producer Kate Peyton, who was slain outside a hotel in Mogadishu on February 9, 2005.