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Marie Colvin was many journalists' hero. She risked her life countless times, over decades, to expose war crimes and abuses of power by forces of every political stripe, from Sri Lanka to Gaza to Iraq to Syria, where she was killed. /1
Marie was killed on Feb. 22, 2012, in a Syrian government artillery barrage on a makeshift press center in the besieged, rebel-held neighborhood of Baba Amr, in Homs. Photojournalist Remi Ochlik was killed too. /2
nytimes.com/2012/02/23/wor…
nytimes.com/2012/02/23/wor…
Most of us long working in the region w/Marie were already in mourning. Marie was killed 6 days after our colleague & beloved friend Anthony Shadid died in Syria. The news hit as journos were still gathered in Beirut for his memorial. /3
nytimes.com/2012/03/04/wor…
nytimes.com/2012/03/04/wor…
Marie missed Anthony's memorial bc she felt a duty to be in besieged Baba Amr, in Homs, reporting in person on the all-out indiscriminate artillery shelling of a rebellious neighborhood by Syrian govt forces - which at the time was something new and shocking. /4
Both died trying to report what Syrian officials didn't want them to see. Anthony was denied a visa, so got smuggled in over mountains & died of asthma attack on the arduous way back. And journos who did get visas were barred from visiting opposition areas. So Marie snuck in. /5
At the time her death seemed another version of the same tragedy: Journalist takes risks to reach the story - in Marie's case, deliberately going to an area under heavy shelling, to report on that shelling - and dies from those risks. Collateral damage, as it were. /6
But new court papers appear to bolster a far darker case argued by Marie's colleagues who survived the attack, and by her family in a US lawsuit: That they were deliberately tracked and targeted by Syrian security officials. /7
The night before she died, Marie delivered searing accounts of shelling of civilians in Homs, on Channel 4 & CNN. Those broadcasts, the suit argues, gave Syrian officials motive (stop the reports) & means (tracking the satellite signal). /8
Almost 2 years ago, Marie's family filed a wrongful death suit vs Syria's govt & 9 top officials. It argues Marie was killed deliberately as part of a systematic effort to silence journalists, Syrian & foreign, and those who give them info. /9 nytimes.com/2016/07/10/wor…
Cathleen Colvin, Marie's sister, didn't expect to collect damages (US law allows suits vs foreign govts US lists as terror sponsors). But she told me she wanted to help hold all Syria war criminals accountable: "I'm not the only one that lost a sister." /10
Now, the Colvin lawyers, @ScottaGilmore et al, reveal in court the witness statements & documents they've gathered. They tracked down a staffer of the govt body overseeing response to the uprising, & "Ulysses," an intelligence official privy to Homs operations at the time. /11
They also draw on 200 Syrian gov't documents, among 700,000 that have been smuggled out & archived by the Commission for International Justice & Accountability, a group seeking to build Syria war crimes cases for future prosecution. /12
William H. Wiley, the commission's founder, told me this and other cases filed in Europe show how private groups can push for accountability and preserve future evidence, even when the UN Security Council is stalemated as it is now on Syria. @NermaJelacic /13
Besides that, the specific accounts & documents cited on how Colvin & colleagues were tracked are riveting and, for journalists who have been trying to cover Syria from inside & from nearby countries for years, chilling & alarming. /14
nytimes.com/2018/04/09/wor…
nytimes.com/2018/04/09/wor…
"Friendly Lebanese officials" tipped Syria's intel chief that journos were headed from Beirut to Baba Amr; orders were given to capture them or "take all necessary measures," understood to include killing, "Ulysses" said in a sworn statement. /15
Story has many details on how - witness statements say - w/in a day of Colvin & colleague Paul Conroy reaching Baba Amr thru a water pipe, informants & Marie's satellite signal helped Syrian artillery hit the media center where they stayed. /16
nytimes.com/2018/04/09/wor…
nytimes.com/2018/04/09/wor…
Paul described the approach of shells on either side, nearer and nearer, in what many war journalists, vets and survivors would recognize as "walking" shells "onto" a target: firing, watching where it lands, adjusting, firing again. /17
Abdel Majid Barakat, a staffer of Damascus's Central Crisis Management Cell, & the documents he taped under his shirt when he defected, say journos were identified as a top national security threat needing lethal response. /18
Neck-prickling side details from Anwar Malek, Algerian who quit an Arab League observer mission in Homs at the time, concluding govt had infiltrated & co-opted it. Phone rang w/death threat in his hotel, the Safir. That's where we stay in Homs, when we manage to get visas. /19
He then wished he'd waited to quit until getting out of Syria. He said top official had earlier told him straight up journos were target. His convoy was attacked on way to Damascus; govt blamed rebels but Malek thought govt set up the attack. /20
nytimes.com/2018/04/09/wor…
nytimes.com/2018/04/09/wor…
Finally: This new detail didn't fit in story but of interest to Beirut press corps. When Paul Conroy was smuggled out w/severe leg injury, Brit Amb. Fletcher warned him not to get surgery in Lebanon. Syrian intel was actively looking for him in Beirut hospitals. /21
Thread & story from @theintercept's @rj_gallagher highlight other points, incl: Detailed statement from defector saying Syrian officials led French journalist Gilles Jacquier to his death in attack blamed on rebels but actually launched by govt. /22
This part about the taxi is extra creepy. On the rare occasions we manage to get visas, Syrian officials always claim that their extreme control over our movements is entirely for our safety. /23
And here's a list of the Syrian officers allegedly present for a celebration after Marie Colvin's death was confirmed, at which some called her "a dog" and a "blind bitch" who "was Israeli."
News: A US court sides w/journalist Marie Colvin's family, slapping the Syrian government with $302.5 million in damages for hunting down Marie & other journalists & killing her. The weapon: An artillery barrage. nytimes.com/2019/01/31/wor…
Damascus didn't respond in court, but judge couldn't rule for family unless evidence stood scrutiny. Plaintiffs suggested $30-300mil in punitive damages for Colvin's "extrajudicial killing," judge chose the max. A solid thread on evidence here:
It's worth noting how deeply some Syrians embrace Marie; those who see her giving her life to get their stories of suffering to the outside world. I'll never forget the video of young people in Homs dancing around her and Remi's coffins.
Meanwhile, the same kind of discourse that labeled journalists in Syria enemies of the people, spreaders of false news, and ultimately targets for death is more & more common throughout the region - below, in Egypt - not to mention on the rise in the USA.
