Government urged to probe journalist's murder

In Mogadishu, Somali authorities must pursue all leads in investigating the murder of broadcast journalist, Abdisalan Sheikh Hassan on Sunday 18 December who had reported receiving several recent threats.

A gunman in a military uniform shot the freelance reporter, according to local and international reports.

Hassan was driving from the offices of HornCable TV to a press conference when the uniformed gunman intercepted the vehicle and shot the journalist in the head, according to the station's director, Abdulle Haj Ali.

The shooting took place about 4pm in Mogadishu's central district of Hamar Jajab. Hassan died after being taken to a local hospital.

Somalia's Information Ministry issued a statement saying that authorities were investigating the case.

"We condemn the heinous assassination of Abdisalan Sheikh Hassan," Commitee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) East Africa consultant Tom Rhodes said.

"The Somali government must lead a thorough and transparent investigation and break a pattern of impunity for killers of journalists," said Rhodes.

Hassan, who also contributed to Hamar Radio and the Voice of Democracy radio station, told colleagues that he had received recent death threats via cell phone. A soldier also threatened Hassan in person on Saturday and Friday, according to one colleague who spoke with the victim on Sunday.

Hassan had covered a tense session of the Transitional Federal Parliament last week during which violence broke out between supporters and opponents of speaker Sharif Hassan Sheikh Adan, local journalists told CPJ.

He is the third journalist to be killed in the last five months.

Early in August 2011, Farah Hassan Sahal, logistics manager and driver of SIMBA radio was killed by a sniper believed to have fired by the African Union mission in Somalia, at the radio compound in Mogadishu's Bakara market, while trying along with other media executives, to move the radio equipment into the safer zones of Mogadishu, according to the director of the SIMBA Radio, Abdullahi Ali Farah.

On 2 September 2011, a Malaysian journalist, Noramfaizul Mohd Nor, 41, a cameraman for the Malaysian National News Agency was shot to death and Aji Saregar Mazlan, A TV3 journalist was wounded after shooting incident took place in KM4 area.

Source: allAfrica.com