AP Responds to Bilal Hussein Allegation

Tue, Sep 19, 2006 at 1:04:12 pm PDT

Associated Press Corporate Communications just sent me the following message about photographer Bilal Hussein, responding to Dan Riehl’s post from yesterday:

From The Associated Press, Corporate Communications

Some blogs are asserting that AP photographed and videotaped an execution of an Italian man named Savatore Santoro near Ramadi in December of 2004. This is not true. The man was already dead by the time anyone working for The Associated Press was brought to see him. The photographs of the dead body, taken by Bilal Hussein, and the captions transmitted with those photos, appear below the following AP story filed on December 16, 2004. This AP story explains that masked insurgents stopped Husseinl and other AP journalists, including an AP video journalist, at a roadblock and took them to the site where the blindfolded body lay, already stiff with rigor mortis. They propped the body up and allowed the journalists to photograph and videotape it.

For the full text and photos transmitted on 12/16/04 by AP, see:
http://www.ap.org/response/response_091906a.html

UPDATE at 9/19/06 4:08:51 pm:

Rusty is not impress: The Jawa Report: AP Responds to Bloggers: Cite Known Terrorist Sympathizer as Source.