"'We were all there, for at least half an hour. They knew we were journalists. After they shot Mazen, they aimed their guns at us. I don't think it was accident. They are very tense. They are crazy,' said Stephan Breitner of France 2 television. Breitner said soldiers tried to resuscitate Dana but failed. 'They are young soldiers and they don't understand what is happening.'" - The Kansas City Star, via Horst Prillinger
"Eyewitnesses said soldiers on an American tank shot at Mazen Dana, 43, as he filmed outside Abu Ghraib prison in western Baghdad which had earlier come under a mortar attack. Dana's last pictures show a U.S. tank driving toward him outside the prison walls. Several shots ring out from the tank, and Dana's camera falls to the ground. The U.S. military acknowledged on Sunday that its troops had 'engaged' a Reuters cameraman, saying they had thought his camera was a rocket propelled grenade launcher. [...] 'They saw us and they knew about our identities and our mission,' [Reuter soundman] Shyoukhi said. [...]
Dana's death brings to 17 the number of journalists or their assistants who have died in Iraq since war began on March 20. Two others have been missing since the first days of the war. Dana is the second Reuters cameraman to be killed since the U.S.-led force invaded Iraq. On April 8, Taras Protsyuk, a Ukrainian based in Warsaw, died when a U.S. tank fired a shell at the 15th floor of the Palestine Hotel, the base for many foreign media in Baghdad." -
Reuters
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