Beheading dominates media worldwide

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Registered: 03-23-2003
Beheading dominates media worldwide
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Wed, 05-12-2004 - 11:54am

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apeurope_story.asp?category=1103&slug=World%20View%20Beheading


Wednesday, May 12, 2004 · Last updated 8:25 a.m. PT


Beheading dominates media worldwide


By MICHAEL MCDONOUGH
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER


LONDON -- Amnesty International condemned the videotaped beheading in Iraq of American civilian Nick Berg, an act which Prime Minister Tony Blair's office described Wednesday as "barbaric." But Iranian radio accused Western media of using the slaying to distract attention from the abuse of prisoners in Iraq.


Images from the film showing Berg and his captors just before the killing dominated TV broadcasts and newspaper front pages in many countries.


A Kuwaiti newspaper ran a picture of one of the killers holding the severed head and some Greek TV stations showed the actual execution, although they obscured the head. The full video was posted on an al-Qaida-linked Web site.


"Such acts are unjustifiable under any circumstances and constitute a serious crime under international law," London-based human rights group Amnesty International said of the slaying. "Those responsible should be brought to justice in line with international standards."


The masked men who killed Berg claimed they were angered by coalition abuses of Iraqi prisoners. The video, posted Tuesday, showed them pushing Berg to the floor, severing his head and holding it up. His body was found near a highway overpass in Baghdad on Saturday, the same day he was beheaded, a U.S. official said.


The video bore the title "Abu Musab al-Zarqawi shown slaughtering an American," referring to an associate of Osama bin Laden believed responsible for a wave of suicide bombings in Iraq.


Blair's official spokesman, speaking on condition of anonymity, described the killing as "a truly barbaric act," adding: "There is no justification for this kind of act in a civilized world."


In Greece, government spokesman Theodoros Roussopoulos said the execution provoked a "sense of abhorrence. ... The Greek government condemns violence wherever it comes from."


Most Greek TV stations aired segments of the video, some stopping just before the beheading while others obscured the head during the execution.


Other broadcasters in Britain, Spain, China, Germany, Italy and Belgium showed images of Berg kneeling on the floor with his black-clad captors standing behind him.


"What follows is too cruel to show," said Belgium's VRT public broadcaster, which aired the video up to the point where Berg was thrown to the ground after one attacker took out a knife.


Germany's mass-circulation Bild newspaper ran a picture of Berg's captors holding up his severed head, eliciting condemnation from the German Journalists' Union.


"Naturally, newspapers have to report on this horrible act," union chairman Michael Konken said in a statement. "But the human slaughter recorded in the picture does not belong in the media."


Iranian radio accused the western media of showing pictures from the video for propaganda purposes.


"As a result, the issue of Iraqi prisoners' torture has been totally ignored by these media," the Voice of the Islamic Republic of Iran said.


"The American authorities too, have entered this news-making propaganda. These authorities have described the killing method of the American national as loathsome, and implicitly indicated that the American troops were justified to torture Iraqi prisoners."


Arab media reacted cautiously to the execution, with some newspapers conspicuously playing it down or even ignoring it.


Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya, the big two satellite networks, aired edited snippets of the video. "The news story itself is strong enough," said Jihad Ballout, spokesman for Qatar-based Al-Jazeera television. "To show the actual beheading is out of the realm of decency."


Egypt's leading daily, Al-Ahram, ignored the beheading Wednesday. An editor said the news came too late for the paper to confirm the video's authenticity with the U.S. government.


Newspapers in Syria, where the government controls the press tightly, did not report the execution at all.


Five of Kuwait's seven dailies published the report with photographs on their front pages. The other two published brief reports. The Al-Siyassah daily ran two photos, including one with a masked militant holding up Berg's severed head.


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Registered: 03-18-2000
Sat, 05-15-2004 - 9:44am
What REALLY happen in the days prior to Berg's terrible death?
Will the truth ever be uncovered?
The one person that knows for sure is no longer able to speak.
Update: Coalition: Berg was never in U.S. custody.
Businessman's family, friends say he told them otherwise.

A coalition spokesman said Friday that U.S. military police may have been at the Iraqi facility where Nicholas Berg was held before he was killed, but he insisted that Berg was never in U.S. custody, despite reports to the contrary.


"To our knowledge, he was detained by the Iraqi police in Mosul," coalition spokesman Dan Senor told CNN. "He was in Iraqi police custody. He was met by U.S. officials, he was visited three times by the FBI, but at all times, he was in Iraqi custody."


"I think some of the confusion emanates from the fact that a number of the detention facilities throughout the country, there are American MPs who play a support role there," Senor added. "But it doesn't detract from the fact it's still an Iraqi facility, and I think once we do a little more investigating, we can hope to provide more clarity."


Iraqi authorities said they held the American civilian only briefly before handing him over to U.S. troops, police sources in Mosul said Thursday.


Attorney General John Ashcroft said Friday that Berg was in the custody of Iraqi police when he was questioned by the FBI.


Ashcroft also said FBI agents and officials with the Coalition Provisional Authority "emphasized to him the dangerous environment that existed at the time in Iraq. And they encouraged him to accept the CPA's offer to arrange his safe passage out of Iraq."


Berg also turned down offers to advise his family of his status, Ashcroft said.


State Department spokesman Richard Boucher has said that State Department consular officers spoke with Berg in Baghdad on April 10 and offered to help him leave Iraq by plane to go to Jordan. However, Boucher said, Berg told the consular officers that he had made arrangements to leave by land through Kuwait.


Berg's decapitation was videotaped, and the video was posted on a Web site linked to al Qaeda on Tuesday.


Berg's father, Michael Berg, said Thursday that State Department officials told him his son was being held by the U.S. military.


State Department officials said Thursday that they were later told the information they passed to Berg's family in e-mails -- information they attributed to the Coalition Provisional Authority -- was incorrect.


At least one friend, as well as Berg's relatives, said Berg told them he was in U.S. custody for about two weeks.


"Nic told me, 'Iraqi police caught me one night, they saw my passport and my Jewish last name and my Israeli stamp. This guy thought I was a spy, so they put me with American soldiers and American soldiers put me in a jail for two weeks,' " said Hugo Infante, a Chilean freelance journalist who stayed at the same Baghdad hotel. (Full story)


Berg's brother David told reporters that the family received e-mails from Berg after his release in April that made clear he had been held by U.S. forces. And Infante said Berg described being held in a coalition facility where Syrians, Egyptians, Jordanians and Iranians suspected of entering Iraq illegally were also detained.


Berg had been scheduled to return to his home in suburban Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on March 30, but missed that flight while in custody. Michael Berg said the delay contributed to his son's death, since intense fighting between Iraqi insurgents and American troops broke out five days later.


Also Friday, Berg's friends and family held a private memorial service at a synagogue in his hometown of West Chester, Pennsylvania. (Full story)


Encounter with Moussaoui acquaintance

Berg had been investigated by the FBI once before when he was a student at a branch campus of the University of Oklahoma. At the time, Berg's e-mail account was being used by Zacarias Moussaoui -- the only person publicly charged in the United States in connection with the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. (Full story)


Berg's father said his son gave a man on a bus the password to his account because "Whoever was next to my son was treated with great respect and friendship."


Ashcroft said Berg was cleared of suspicion during the initial investigation more than a year ago.


"The suggestion that Mr. Berg was in some way involved in terrorist activity, or may have been linked in some way, is a suggestion that we do not have any ability to support and we do not believe is a valid one," Ashcroft said.


More...........


http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/05/14/iraq.berg/index.html

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