…about an attempted hostage escape in Iraq. Sounds like he almost made it:
…a cameraman for the Kurdish satellite television channel KurdSat, Husam Hilal Sarsam, 28, was shot and killed in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul as he tried to run away from people who had kidnapped him the day before, co-workers and witnesses said. He was the sixth journalist to be killed in Mosul since U.S. forces invaded Iraq two years ago.
Ahmad Abdul Kareem, 25, said he saw Sarsam burst out of a Mazda that was stuck in heavy traffic and try to flee to safety. Sarsam was then chased by another occupant of the car. When Sarsam escaped that man, Kareem said, a second man from the car pulled out a handgun and shot Sarsam four times, killing him.
Akram Sulayman, the Mosul bureau chief for KurdSat, said Sarsam was kidnapped Sunday and apparently tortured. He said that Sarsam’s upper torso had been badly slashed by a sharp instrument and that his back had burn marks.
“He received many threats, like the others here at the office,” Sulayman said, noting that the station’s former bureau chief had also been killed. “We will continue, no matter what the price we pay.”