Bomb kills TV presenter in Iraq

2012-04-03 14:01

Baghdad - A sticky bomb killed an Iraqi television presenter working for a local TV station in Salaheddin province in central Iraq, a provincial spokesperson said on Tuesday.

Kameran Salah al-Din, a presenter for Salaheddin Channel, was killed in central Tikrit by a magnetic "sticky bomb" attached to his car, as he drove home from work on Monday evening, Salaheddin provincial council spokesperson Jamal al-Dulaimi said.

Din, aged 34, and father-of-two was the second journalist killed in Iraq this year, according to the Journalistic Freedoms Observatory, an Iraq-based media rights group.

Salaheddin Channel was established by American forces in 2004 and is funded by the Salaheddin provincial council.

Iraq ranked 152nd out of 179 countries in media rights watchdog Reporters Without Borders' (RSF) 2011-2012 World Press Freedom Index, down 22 from the year before.

The report noted that there was "an increase in murders of journalists" in Iraq, and "journalists are very often the target of violence by the security forces, whether at demonstrations in Tahrir Square in Baghdad, or in Iraqi Kurdistan, a region that had for many years offered a refuge for journalists".

- AFP