France shocked by ‘odious’ killing of 2 journalists in Mali
Print Edition
France yesterday blamed terrorist groups for the “odious” and “cold-blooded” murder of two radio journalists in northern Mali, and said French troops would boost security in the restive zone.
Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Radio France Internationale journalist Ghislaine Dupont and sound technician Claude Verlon were shot dead after being abducted by armed men on Saturday.
“They were killed in cold blood, one took two bullets and the other three,” he said after crisis talks led by President Francois Hollande on the murders in the town of Kidal.
“The killers are those we are fighting, the terrorist groups who are opposed to democracy and elections,” he said, adding the journalists had been executed in an “odious manner.”
He said security in “the entire zone and neighboring areas, in particular with concern to French citizens, will be intensified.”
A government source said this meant making the presence of French troops based in northern Mali “more visible.”
Justice Minister Christiane Taubira and the head of France’s external intelligence services agency Bernard Bajolet also attended the hour-long talks with Hollande.
Dupont, 57, and Verlon, 55, travelled on Saturday to Kidal to interview a spokesman for the Tuareg separatist group the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), and were abducted outside his home, their employer said.
They were veteran journalists experienced in Africa reporting. Dupont had spent 27 years covering the continent since joining RFI in 1986.
RFI quoted MNLA spokesman Ambery Ag Rhissa as saying he heard a commotion outside and saw the pair being bundled into a four wheel-drive vehicle after the interview.
Men in turbans and speaking the Tuareg language of Tamashek “ordered Ag Rhissa to get back inside and forced the journalists’ driver to lie down,” RFI said yesterday, adding that Ag Rhissa had heard Verlon and Dupont resist and protest.
“This was the last time that the journalists were seen alive,” said Marie-Christine Saragosse, chief executive of France Media Monde, which owns RFI. She said she was leaving for Mali to bring back the bodies.
A French military patrol found the victims’ bodies lying near their car about 12 kilometers east of Kidal less than two hours after the kidnap, Fabius said.
The United Nations Security Council has strongly condemned the killings while European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso called them “barbaric.”
On Tuesday, four Frenchmen were freed three years after being abducted in Niger by an al-Qaida offshoot. But jubilation over their liberation was tempered by speculation that a huge ransom may have been paid to secure their freedom.
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