No justice for Terry Lloyd
The killers of ITN reporter Terry Lloyd, gunned down in southern Iraq just after the Anglo-US invasion in 2003, will not be brought to trial in the UK.
The NUJ reacted angrily to the decision by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) not to bring to justice the American marines known to have committed the crime.
Two years ago an inquest in Oxford found that NUJ member Terry Lloyd was killed by a bullet from an M63 machine gun fired by US marines.
The coroner, Andrew Walker, said he would ask the authorities to “bring the persons involved in this incident to justice” after ruling that the war correspondent’s death was “unlawful killing”. His call was joined by the union, Terry Lloyd’s family and his employer, ITN.
The NUJ was critical of the US authorities at the inquest, when they failed to co-operate and refused to send witnesses.
The CPS has now said there is insufficient evidence to mount a prosecution. NUJ General Secretary Jeremy Dear said: “The CPS should be ashamed of itself for backing away from this issue so completely.
“Terry was killed because he was trying to do his job.”
Killed with him was producer Fred Nerac and translator Hussein Osman; Fred Nerac’s body has never been found. They were attacked near Basra in a vehicle prominently labelled “TV”.
Their camera operator, Daniel Demoustier, survived and gave evidence at the inquest
The inquest into the death of BBC reporter Kate Peyton, gunned down in Mogadishu, Somalia, in 2005, will open on November 24 at Ipswich Crown Court. Kate Peyton’s family are expected to question the BBC about the circumstances in which she was sent to the war zone.