Somalia

Journalist 'not killed by government'

Article published on the 2009-06-08 Latest update 2009-06-08 16:21 TU

A car destroyed by a bomb in Mogadishu, 7 June 2009
(Photo: Reuters)

It was probably not the government that assassinated the director of Somalia's Shabelle radio network, Mokhtar Mohamed Hirabe, in Mogadishu on Sunday, the Secretary General of the National Union of Somali Journalists, Omar Farouk, has told RFI.

Farouk said "we are conducting an investigation to collect more information and to provide precisely who was behind [the assassinaton]". He continued, "the preliminary information we have is stating that the government was not involved at all, that militias were not involved in this killing. Government forces have committed serious violations against the media, but ... [in] this latest killing, the government is not involved".

Hirabe was shot in the head in the Baraka section of Mogadishu. A colleague was wounded in the attack.

Reporters Without Borders, based in Paris, expressed "anger and dismay" at the killing.

"Hirabe is the third Radio Shabelle journalist to suffer a fatal attack since the start of 2009; the fifth journalist killed this year", it said in a statement.

More kidnapped journalists are being held in the country: one Somali TV reporter, taken on Tuesday, and two freelance journalists, one Australian and one Canadian, both taken about nine months ago.

Some in Somalia have speculated that supporters of Shiekh Hassan Dahir Aweys killed Hirabe.

He is an Islamist opposition leader that a pro-government militia claimed on Saturday was killed or seriously injured in the town of Webho. The killing of Hirabe may have been an angry response to this report, the commentators say.

However, Aweys' militia says he he still alive.

Fighting increased over the weekend; more than 120 people are reported dead since Friday, three of them on Sunday in a vehicle bombing.