'Torn
to pieces': Ghastly details emerge of Italian reporter and his
Russian interpreter’s killing in E. Ukraine
Witnesses have revealed new details of the killings in Ukraine of an Italian reporter and his Russian interpreter, Andrey Mironov – who was also a veteran human rights activist, a journalist and a Soviet dissident.
RT,
26
May, 2014
Mironov’s
body is currently in a morgue in Slavyansk and might soon delivered
to Russia, media report.
Mironov,
60, was killed along with Italian photojournalist Andrea Rocchelli,
30, by mortar fire on Saturday near the village of Andreevka, a
couple of kilometers from Slavyansk, eastern Ukraine. French
journalist, William Roguelon was wounded in the attack.
The
journalists were in the area to report on fighting between local
self-defense squads and Kiev forces amid an ongoing military
operation launched weeks ago by the coup-imposed government to
suppress protesters who seek more autonomy.
Following
the tragedy, Kiev put the blame for the deaths of the journalists on
“terrorists,” as the new Ukrainian authorities refer to
opposition activists.
Nikolay
Goshovsky, a senior official from Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s
Office said that a criminal case on “aggravated killing” was
opened, reported UNN agency. He also stated that the journalists got
killed as armed forces “responded” to actions of self-defense
rather than during Kiev’s “anti-terrorist” operation.
Witnesses’
accounts, including Roguelon, claim the opposite and accuse the
military of the armed assault.
Evgeny,
a taxi driver who also survived the attack, told RT’s video agency
Ruptly that the journalists left his car, “raised their hands and
started taking photos when machine gun shooting began.” The driver
said that he got frightened and jumped into a nearby ditch where he
was then joined by the Italian and French journalists and the Russian
interpreter.
“We
were sitting there when the mortar shelling started. The first shells
fell near the ravine but then one shell reached us,” Evgeny said.
“I saw that the interpreter was not moving at all [after the
shelling]. The [Italian] correspondent, who was sitting next to him,
crawled to me and then stopped moving too.”
The
one surviving correspondent, apparently the Frenchman, the driver
said, ran after him towards the car.
“When
we got out on the road he ran but then fell on the ground being shot.
I thought he was dead. There was no time to think, as mortar shelling
went on, I dropped into the car and drove away to the city,” Evgeny
added.
Roguelon
reportedly managed flee the site and was then taken by locals to a
hospital where he received treatment.
The
bodies of the Italian journalist and his Russian interpreter were
found on Sunday morning by local self-defense, witnesses told Ruptly.
“Apparently,
one [of the attacked journalists] got hit into the head, because the
head is absent. The other it seems was cut by shell splinters,”
they said. The witnesses added that the head of one of the bodies was
“torn to pieces” and “only scull” was left at the site.
Documents – Mironov and Rocchelli passports – were in the pockets
of the dead and parts of two photo cameras were found nearby, they
told the agency.
So
far, no official details of the incident have been made public.
Ukrainian law enforcers said Sunday that they could not examine the
site of the deadly incident since the area, according to their
information, was controlled by self-defense forces.
The
Italian Foreign Ministry confirmed Sunday that the Italian reporter
was killed during the attack, adding though that final confirmation
can only be made after his body is identified by relatives. Russian
Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov “exchanged condolences” with his
Italian counterpart over the deaths of “Rocchelli and his Russian
interpreter Mironov,” it said in a statement.
On
Monday, Ukrainian acting Foreign Minister Andrey Deshchitsa assured
his Italian counterpart Federica Mogherini that Kiev is ready to
investigate the circumstances of the tragedy and assist in organizing
the transportation of the Italian reporter’s body to his homeland.
Colleagues mourn Mironov who was never 'simply an
interpreter'
Svetlana
Gannushkina, the head of the Civic Assistance Committee and a member
of Memorial rights organization, also confirmed that Mironov, their
“colleague and friend” was killed near Slavyansk.
Mironov
“knew several European languages including Italian” and “often
accompanied journalists, politicians and members of international
rights organizations as an interpreter,” she said in a statement
published on the committee’s website.
“But
never and nowhere had the rights activist and former political
prisoner Andrey Mironov been simply an interpreter,” Gannushkina
said.
In
1985 Mironov was arrested for distributing ‘the samizdat’ – the
underground press and books banned in the USSR and a year later
sentenced to four years in prison in for “anti-Soviet propaganda,”
his colleague recalled. However, as Mikhail Gorbachev launched
perestroika, Mironov along with other political prisoners was
released.
As
a rights activist – independently or together with colleagues –
he visited many flashpoints, and repeatedly traveled to Chechnya
during the conflict in the Russian Caucasian republic, according to
Gannushkina.
“A
man of a crystal-clear soul was killed,” she said.
Novaya
Gazeta (NG) daily published the last report by Mironov with photos
taken by Rocchelli in Ukraine. The paper applied to Russian Foreign
Ministry asking diplomats to help organize transporting the body of
the killed Russian journalist – who worked for them as a freelancer
- to his native soil, reports RIA Novosti citing NG’s
Editor-in-chief Dmitry Muratov.
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