Freedom’s Reporter

National Review Online ^ | 8/3/05 | Kathryn Jean Lopez

[dervish]

Steven Vincent is murdered in pursuit of truth.

"An Iraqi police lieutenant, who for obvious reasons asked to remain anonymous, confirmed to me the widespread rumors that a few police officers are perpetrating many of the hundreds of assassinations — mostly of former Baath Party members — that take place in Basra each month. He told me that there is even a sort of "death car": a white Toyota Mark II that glides through the city streets, carrying off-duty police officers in the pay of extremist religious groups to their next assignment."

So wrote American freelance journalist Steven Vincent in a piece that appeared in the New York Times this past weekend.

And then a death car came for him.

According to an e-mail from Vincent's wife sent on Tuesday night, Vincent and his Iraqi translator, Nour Weidi, were "snatched in front of a bank on Tuesday, August 2nd at 6:30 P.M. local time. Two men drove up, grabbed them, threw them in a car and took off. Nour dropped her ID on the street, which is how the British were able to figure out who it was." Hours later, the American embassy in Baghdad would confirm Vincent dead, and his translator seriously wounded. Vincent's body was found on the side of a highway. He had been shot multiple times in the head.

[dervish]

Also see:

here

for the article Steven Vincent wrote on Baathist police responsible for terrorism

[dervish]

ping!

[dervish]

Another article suggesting that it was Vincent's exposure of Basra police involvement in terrorist activity that got him killed.

BASRA, Iraq — An American freelance journalist, who accused Basra's police of being infiltrated by Shiite militiamen in a recent New York Times column and his Internet blog, was found shot to death in the southern city after being abducted by armed men driving a police car.


http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=19017