Family of murdered journalist Marie Colvin file lawsuit against Bashar al-Assad
A law suit filed in the USA claims the Syrian regime was involved in a “conspiracy to assassinate journalists
A CELEBRATED journalist who was killed in a rocket attack was deliberately targeted by Syrian government forces, it’s been claimed.
The family of war correspondent Marie Colvin, who died in 2012, filed the lawsuit at a Washington court over the weekend.
Lawyers representing her relatives have accused the regime of President Bashar al-Assad of a “conspiracy to assassinate journalists.”
The documents describe the death of Colvin, who worked for The Sunday Times, The Sun’s sister paper, as a war crime.
The 56-year-old American citizen was killed in the besieged city of Homs hours after accusing the Syrian army of “shelling…cold, starving civilians.”
She made the comments in a live TV interview from the building where she was sheltering.
The lawsuit claims Syrian intelligence officials intercepted her broadcast signals to find her exact location.
Artillery units then began targeting the site, killing Colvin and French photographer Rémi Ochlik.
Her family, including her sister Cathleen, are suing the Syrian regime under laws allowing US victims of state-sponsored terrorism to seek compensation from the governments involved.
US human rights lawyers have spent four years investigating her death using witnesses, defectors and documentary evidence.
The lawyer leading the investigation, Scott, Gilmore, said: “Marie Colvin was killed for exposing the Assad regime’s slaughter of innocent civilians to the world.
“The regime wanted to wage a war without witness against the democratic opposition.
“To do that they needed to neutralise the media.”
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The bundle names eight senior Syrian officials, including the president’s brother
Maher al-Assad, who allegedly participated in the plot to slay journalists.
Lawyers claim Maher awarded a local death squad boss a black luxury car in exchange for his role in the murders of Colvin and Ochlik.