Fred Nerac

CPJ research indicates that the following journalists have disappeared while doing their work. Although some of them are feared dead, no bodies have been found, and they are therefore not classified as "Killed." If a journalist disappeared after being held in government custody, CPJ classifies him or her as "Imprisoned" as a way to hold the government accountable for the journalist's fate.

New York, October 13, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by the finding of a British inquest that ITN journalist Terry Lloyd was unlawfully killed by U.S. troops in southern Iraq three years ago. CPJ called on the U.S. military to reopen its own investigation into the shooting.

A coroner in Oxford ruled today that Lloyd, a veteran correspondent with Britain’s Independent Television News, was killed by U.S. fire on March 22, 2003, as he was being taken to the hospital in a makeshift ambulance after being wounded. Deputy Coroner Andrew Walker said he intended to write to the attorney-general and the director of public prosecutions in an effort to bring those responsible for Lloyd’s death before a British court, Reuters said.

Politics, money, and the press stir a mysterious case. By Julia Crawford

New York, February 16, 2005—The kidnappers holding Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena have released a video showing her pleading for her life and calling on U.S. and coalition troops to leave Iraq, The Associated Press (AP) has reported.

On February 4, gunmen seized Sgrena, a reporter for the Rome-based Italian daily Il Manifesto, near Baghdad University, where she had been conducting interviews.

The U.S.-led war in Iraq proved extremely dangerous for journalists. More than a dozen lost their lives reporting there in 2003, and many seasoned war correspondents have called the postwar environment the most risky assignment of their lives. With the demise of Saddam Hussein's repressive regime, Iraqi media have flourished, but news organizations faced potentially restrictive new media regulations, as well as harassment from U.S. and Iraqi authorities.

CPJ research indicates that the following journalists have disappeared while doing their work. Although some of them are feared dead, no bodies have been found, and they are therefore not classified as "Killed." If a journalist disappeared after being held in government custody, CPJ classifies him or her as "Imprisoned" as a way to hold the government accountable for the journalist's fate.

New York, April 3, 2003—During a NATO press conference today in Brussels, Belgium, Fabienne Nerac urged U.S. secretary of state Colin Powell to provide more information on her missing husband, ITV cameraman Fred Nerac.

"I give you my personal promise we will do everything we can to find out what happened," Powell told her, according to the BBC.

Nerac and translator Hussein Othman have been missing since March 22, when their marked press vehicle reportedly came under fire from coalition and Iraqi forces outside the southern Iraqi city of Basra. ITV correspondent Terry Lloyd was killed in the incident.

New York, April 1, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is pleased that four journalists, who were last seen in Baghdad’s Palestine Hotel on March 24, are now safe in Jordan.

Free-lance photographer Molly Bingham; Johan Rydeng Spanner, a free-lance photographer with the Danish daily Jyllands Posten; and correspondent Matthew McAllester and photographer Moises Saman, both with Newsday are in Jordan, headed to Amman.

New York, March 30, 2003—Newsday correspondent Matthew McAllester and photographer Moises Saman may have been detained by Iraqi authorities, said editors at the U.S.-based daily. McAllester and Saman were last seen in Baghdad on March 24.

Meanwhile, four other journalists remain missing. Johan Rydeng Spanner, a free-lance photographer with the Danish daily Jyllands Posten, and Molly Bingham, a U.S. free-lance photographer, were last seen in Baghdad nearly a week ago being escorted by Iraqi officials from the Palestine Hotel. And ITV News cameraman Fred Nerac and translator Hussein Othman were last seen in southern Iraq on March 22 when their car came under apparent coalition forces fire.

New York, March 28, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) sent a letter today to U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld requesting information about the U.S. bombing of Iraqi state television facilities in Baghdad earlier this week.

The group expressed concern that the Pentagon may have violated international humanitarian law in targeting these facilities and reminded the secretary that broadcast media are protected from attack under the Geneva Conventions and cannot be targeted unless they are used for military purposes.