Veteran Sunday Times war reporter Marie Colvin ‘assassinated’ by Syrian regime, court documents claim
Lawyers for Colvin's family are attempting to sue the regime for her death
FEARLESS Sunday Times war reporter Marie Colvin was “assassinated” by the Syrian regime for covering the brutal conflict, court documents have claimed.
Lawyers for the family of the veteran journalist, killed during a rocket attack in Homs six years ago, are attempting to sue the Syrian government over her death.
They claim that Colvin, 56, was “targeted” by Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad and his henchmen for exposing the massacres of civilians in the country.
American Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik were killed “in a targeted rocket attack” on a makeshift media centre in the rebel-held city of Homs in February 2012.
Court papers, lodged in Washington DC yesterday, said she “was assassinated by government forces of the Syrian Arab Republic as she reported on the suffering of civilians”.
The legal action over the 2012 killing is the first war crimes-related case against the Syrian government to reach court.
It includes evidence from high-placed defectors who testify that reporters were tracked via their satellite phone signals.
It adds: “This deliberate, malicious conduct by the regime was undertaken in blatant violation of established rules of international law, and constitutes an extrajudicial killing.”
Court documents claim that senior regime officials celebrated after confirming Colvin’s death.
One senior officer allegedly declared: “Marie Colvin was a dog and now she’s dead. Let the Americans help her now.”
Other court papers claim that she was tracked by TV reports she gave in the days before her death.
Lawyers for the Colvin family are relying on the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, which allows claimants to sue foreign countries through the US courts for compensation and punitive damages.
The claim has been brought by Colvin’s sister Cathleen.
The Syrian government has declined to engage with the US courts over the claim.
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Award-winning Colvin was the only UK correspondent in Homs, which had been under attack for three weeks when she was killed.
In her last Sunday Times piece, she wrote: “The scale of human tragedy in the city is immense. The inhabitants are living in terror.”
Two years ago President Assad said in a television interview that Colvin was responsible for her own death because she had entered the country illegally and was working with “terrorists”.
