Relatives of Marie Colvin, a USA -born journalist who worked for the British newspaper The Sunday Times, have filed a lawsuit in federal court claiming that Syrian government officials targeted and killed her in 2012 to silence her reporting on the Syria civil war and the besieged city of Homs.
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Filed on behalf of Colvin’s sister Cathleen Colvin and other surviving family members, the lawsuit is reportedly based on information gathered from captured government documents and defectors. Colvin arrived in Homs while the city was under an intense attack by Syrian government forces.
The Marie Colvin Center for International Reporting, honoring her life and legacy, was established in Stony Brook University’s Department of Journalism with seed money from a memorial foundation created by her family.
No armed rebels were present in or around the media centre.
On February 21st, an informant’s tip led Syrian military intelligence to her location and the following morning, Syrian artillery fired on the building, killing her and French photographer Remi Ochlik.
According to the Colvin family’s lawyer Scott Gilmore the lawsuit, which he filed on Saturday, is the first case in which the Syrian regime is implicated in war crimes.
Advocacy group Reporters Without Borders said it supported the lawsuit.
The papers state: ‘Throughout February 2012, the Assad regime received tips from intelligence sources in Lebanon that Ms Colvin and other foreign journalists were travelling to Syria through Lebanon and reporting from the Baba Amr Media Centre. She lost her left eye after it was hit with shrapnel during her coverage of the Sri Lankan conflict in 2001, forcing her to wear an eye patch, which became something of a trademark for her and a symbol of her fearlessness.
Conroy, the Times photographer accompanying Colvin, said he thinks her lengthy broadcasts with the BBC and CNN the night before she was killed were intercepted by authorities. In a career spanning 30 years, she covered wars around the world for the Sunday Times and was renowned for her compassionate, clear writing. “The Syrian Army is simply shelling a city of cold, starving civilians”.
The lawsuit is the fruit of four years of research by the US-based Center for Justice and Accountability.
Conroy had served in an artillery regiment in the British Army. I expect the US Court to uphold the complaint and award millions in compensation to the plaintiffs.
The shelling in Baba Amr was the most intense any of us in the BBC team had ever seen.
The foreign correspondent, lauded for her courage as she bore witness to wars across the world, was known as a fearless but never foolhardy war correspondent.
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They were specifically interested in the location of journalists in the rebel-held neighborhood of Baba Amr, in the western city of Homs, partly controlled by rebel forces between 2011 and 2014.
