Swedish freelance photographer gunned down in Mogadishu: RSF

Press Release
June 24, 2006

A Swedish television cameraman (with white cap and a camera), stands among the protestors while filming a demonstration moments before he was shot dead in Somalia's capital Mogadishu June 23, 2006. REUTERS/Shebelle Media

"Once again a journalist had been gunned down in cold blood and in broad daylight on a Mogadishu street," the press freedom organisation said. "Our thoughts go out to Martin Adler's family and friends, whose grief we share. This was an appalling murder, one that turns journalists into pawns in the hands of rival armed clans that use such crimes in their battle for power."

Referring to four other foreign and Somali journalists killed in Mogadishu in the past 12 years, the organisation added: "Like the murders of Kate Peyton, Duniya Muhiyadin Nur, Ilaria Alpi and Miran Hrovatin, this killing should be exhaustively investigated, and all those responsible should be identified and punished."

Adler, who worked for several media including the Swedish daily Aftonbladet, was covering a demonstration by several thousand people today in support of the peace accord reached yesterday between the Islamic courts and the Somali federal transition government. A group of demonstrators had just set fire to an Ethiopian flag when a shot fired by a hooded man hit Adler in the left side of his chest and entered his heart, killing him instantly.

Somali journalists told Reporters Without Borders they thought the killing was designed to send a message to the Islamic court militias that recently took control of Mogadishu after ousting the warlords that had carved up the city. Those behind the killing probably wanted to show that, contrary to the claims of the heads of the Islamic courts, security has not been re-established in Mogadishu, they said. It may also have been motivated by anti-western sentiment.

Visiting BBC correspondent Kate Peyton was fatally shot in the back by gunmen in a car on 9 February 2005 as she was entering a Mogadishu hotel to meet the speaker of the transitional parliament, Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden. Reporters Without Borders was told her killers belonged to a powerful Mogadishu-based clan that wanted to demonstrate that its control over security in the city and denounce foreign meddling in Somali affairs.

Duniya Muhiyadin Nur, a Somali journalist with the privately-owned radio station HornAfrik, was killed at a checkpoint by a militiaman on 5 June 2005. Ilaria Alpi, an Italian journalist working for the public TV station RAI 3, and Slovenian cameraman Miran Hrovatin were murdered in Mogadishu on 20 March 1994.

Swedish journalist shot dead in Mogadishu

MOGADISHU - A gunman shot dead a Swedish cameraman covering a pro-Islamist rally yesterday in Mogadishu, just weeks after its new rulers said they had pacified one of the world's most lawless cities after 15 years of anarchy. He was filming a protest led by the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) which took the city from US-backed warlords on June 5 and seized a strategic swathe of the Horn of Africa country.

Witnesses said he was filming at the front of a crowd of thousands. "A gun went off, he went down, that was it," said Xan Rice Guardian correspondent. "There was mass confusion. We were shunted to the side, and the rally was called off." After the lone shot, the crowd fled from the body, leaving sandals strewn on the sand.

The Swedish foreign ministry named the victim as Martin Adler. "His family has been informed," said Nina Ersman, a spokesperson. "He was a very well renowned cameraman and journalist." Adler, a prize-winning freelance cameraman who covered more than two dozen war zones in his career, was of Anglo-Swedish origin and was married with two daughters.

Adler renowned journalist, cameraman He won the Amnesty International media award in 2001 for his work on the kidnapping and sale of women in China, and the Rory Peck award for hard news in 2004 for his coverage from Iraq. It was not clear who he was working for in Somalia. Abdirahim Isse, an aide to the courts' leadership, said an unarmed woman who was close to the victim and ran away had been arrested for questioning. But he said the investigation was still under way.

"The man was in a vehicle and came out to take video shots of some angry youths who were burning US and Ethiopian flags ... it was a single shot and within a second he was down," another witness said. Since the Islamists took over, several Western journalists have gone into the city -- previously too dangerous to visit -- at the invitation of the ICU, who say their sharia courts have brought peace and order to a country in desperate need of it.

Adler, tenth journalist killed in Somalia Yesterday's shooting -- at least the 10th killing of a foreign journalist in Somalia since 1991 and the first since Kate Peyton, the BBC producer, was shot in May 2005 -- demonstrates just how hard it will be to tame a city awash with weapons.

The shooting came hours after the Islamists and the government signed a deal in Khartoum on Thursday aimed at preventing confrontation and starting negotiations.

The Islamists have effectively flanked the government's base in the south-central town of Baidoa, raising fears that Ethiopia may intervene to protect the administration and spark new conflict. The government is too weak to move to Mogadishu. - Reuters