WASHINGTON: A US judge has ruled that Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government is liable for at least $302.5 million in damages for its role in the 2012 death of renowned American journalist Marie Colvin while covering the Syrian civil war.
US District Judge Amy Berman Jackson said in a ruling made public on Wednesday that the Syrian government “engaged in an act of extrajudicial killing of a United States national.”
Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik were killed in the besieged Syrian city of Homs while reporting on the Syrian conflict.
The lawsuit filed by Colvin’s family in 2016 accused officials in Assad’s government of deliberately targeting rockets against a makeshift broadcast studio where Colvin and other reporters were living and working.
Jackson wrote that “a targeted attack on a media center hosting foreign journalists that resulted in two fatalities and multiple injuries ... is an unconscionable act.” The judge ruled that compensatory damages to be awarded in addition to the $300 million in punitive damages would be calculated at a later date.
A biographical film about Colvin, called “A Private War” and starring British actress Rosamund Pike, was released last year, bringing fresh attention to her career.
US court finds Syria liable for journalist Marie Colvin’s killing
US court finds Syria liable for journalist Marie Colvin’s killing
- Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled that the Syrian government engaged in an act of extrajudicial killing of a United States national
- Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik were killed in the besieged Syrian city of Homs while reporting on the Syrian conflict
UK sanctions RSF commanders over links to mass killings in Sudan
- The government also pledged a further £21 million to provide food, shelter, health services, and protection for women and children
LONDON: Britain sanctioned senior commanders of Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces on Friday, over what it said were their links to mass killings, systematic sexual violence and deliberate attacks on civilians in the African country.
Abdul Rahim Hamdan Dagalo, the RSF Deputy Leader and brother of RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, as well as three other commanders that are suspected of involvement in these crimes, now face asset freezes and travel bans, the British government said.
“The atrocities taking place in Sudan are so horrific they scar the conscience of the world,” foreign minister Yvette Cooper said in the statement. “Today’s sanctions against RSF commanders strike directly at those with blood on their hands.”
The government also pledged a further £21 million to provide food, shelter, health services, and protection for women and children in some of the hardest-to-reach areas, the statement said.
Millions of people have been displaced by the war, which erupted in April 2023 between the Sudanese army and the RSF.
