By Ajnadin Mustafa.
Tripoli, 10 March 2016:
The attack by an Italian security guard on two photographers at Mitiga drew a protest today from . . .[restrict]press freedom campaigners.
The Libyan Centre for Freedom of the Press has demanded an explanation for the unprovoked assault both from the Italian government and the authorities at Mitiga airport, who had authorised the journalists to be there.
The photographers from Reuters and AP news agencies had been on the tarmac to film the departure last night of an Italian transport aircraft bearing the bodies of the Italian oil workers Salvatore Failla and Fausto Piano slain last week in Sabratha.
The journalists were approached by an Italian security guard whom they reported was swearing at them and ordering them to stop taking pictures. The guard grabbed the Reuter’s man by the throat so that he had difficulty breathing and shoved his AP colleague and his camera away.
In its protest today, the LCFP said that the Italian government claimed to support human rights and freedom of the press and therefore the incident should be investigated.
The bodies of the dead Italians were greeted hours later at Rome’s Ciampino airport by grieving relatives escorted by foreign minister Paolo Gentiloni.
A second autopsy is now being performed on the two oil workers at the Forensic Medicine Institute of the Gemelli Polyclinic. A first autopsy was conducted on Tuesday in Tripoli by Libyan doctors in the presence of an Italian forensic scientist. [/restrict]
