Gilles Jacquier's body flown from Homs to Paris as suspicions grow over Syrian role
Ian Black in Damascus and Angelique Chrisafis in Paris
guardian.co.uk,
Friday 13 January 2012 19.55 GMT
Article history
Gilles Jacquier death – YouTube image shows a placard featuring a picture of the late journalist during a rally in Derbasiye village, Syria. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images
Prosecutors in Paris have launched a preliminary murder investigation into the death of the French journalist Gilles Jacquier in Syria as the French government presses for an independent inquiry.
Jacquier, 43, an award-winning foreign correspondent for French state television's biggest documentary series, was killed on Wednesday in an attack in the divided city of Homs during a government-escorted media trip.
He was among a group of 15 journalists when he was hit in the attack, which also killed nine Syrians and injured 25. He was the first foreign reporter to die since protests against President Bashar al-Assad's regime began in March.
Protests continued across the country with opposition sources reporting 12 dead.
Parisian prosecutors were preparing to perform an autopsy after Jacquier's remains were flown to France with his wife and colleagues. Syria's state news agency, Sana, blamed his death on a mortar attack by "terrorists". The governor of Homs ordered an investigation.
France Télévisions filed a legal complaint over the death, saying many unanswered questions remained. The corporation's editorial director, Thierry Thuillier said the journalists had been travelling in a convoy with a military escort that strictly controlled the media's movements.
"When the firing started, the Syrian soldiers withdrew, leaving the journalists alone and exposed," Thuillier said. "Why? I don't have the answer. But the newsroom, France Télévisions and the families want the answer."
Thuillier said the fire that killed the journalist seemed to have been very "precise". He also questioned why Jacquier and his team were there. "Our team's report was to be about the political situation, not the current conflict. Gilles Jacquier and Christophe Kenck [his cameraman] had refused to go to Homs. Other journalists had accepted, but Jacquier and Kenck were told: 'If you refuse again, you leave.'"
A French foreign ministry spokesman, Romain Nadal, said: "We want an independent and transparent inquiry into the circumstances of this drama." France wanted guarantees the inquiry would be independent, he added.
Le Figaro newspaper quoted an unnamed source close to President Nicolas Sarkozy saying they suspected a "manipulation", while stressing there was no proof at this stage. "The Syrian authorities were the only ones who knew that a group of western journalists were visiting Homs that day and which neighbourhood they were in," the source told the paper. "One could believe it was an unfortunate accident. But it's a bit of a coincidence for a regime which seeks to discourage foreign journalists and demonise the uprising."
Jacques Duplessy, from the French paper Ouest France, who was with Jacquier at the time, told Europe 1 radio: "It wasn't totally by chance, because after these four [rounds of fire] there was nothing, it was over, no attack, no shot." He said he was surprised that Syrian media were so quickly in place. "There was Syrian TV everywhere, three cameras, they filmed everything."
Sarkozy has been one of Assad's most outspoken western critics, calling repeatedly for him to leave office.
Military experts are confident that the weapon that killed Jacquier was a mortar round – probably 60mm. The round has a distinctive tailfin, identical to that seen in an amateur video filmed moments before the Frenchman died. "From the footage I have reviewed, the weapon that hit the journalists in Homs was almost certainly a small calibre (probably 60mm) mortar round," said Human Rights Watch emergencies director, Peter Bouckaert. The 60mm mortar can be fired from up to 2km away.
The Guardian's correspondent and other journalists in a second officially escorted group had left Homs shortly before the incident to return to Damascus.
Two other foreign journalists were reportedly arrested while covering a large anti-regime protest in Douma, near the capital, . The centre was quiet but there was a large presence of security forces in Meidan, an anti-Assad area in the south of the city, where an apparent suicide bombing targeted policemen and reportedly killed 26 last week but is widely suspected of having been staged by the regime.
Riot police were also out in force in Barzeh, another Damascus suburb, with snipers deployed on high buildings around the neighbourhood mosque.
Protesters were urged to express support for the Free Syrian Army, the armed group fighting regime forces and largely composed of defectors. One government supporter tweeted: "#Syria's militant 'revolutionaries' have given their Friday a name that essentially means the Friday of 'Supporting Terrorism'."
The Syrian Revolution General Commission said Friday's 12 dead included four people killed by government forces in Idlib, two in Deir az-Zor, two in Aleppo, two in Homs, one in the Damascus region and one in Hama. Pro-regime Ad-Dounia TV said that three soldiers had been killed and three injured by "armed terrorists" in the Damascus region. None of the casualty figures could be verified independently. Arab League monitors, whose controversial mission will be reviewed next week, visited the main prison in Hama, where they reportedly came under fire.
In a video clip from the Rifai area of Homs, heavy gunfire can heard and a man shouting "where are the Arab observers?"
Additional reporting by Martin Chulov in Beirut
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