Waleed Khaled, 35, was hit by a shot to the face and at least four to the chest as he drove to check a report from police sources of an incident involving police and gunmen in the Hay al-Adil district, in the west of the city.

“A team from Reuters news agency was on assignment to cover the killing of two policemen in Hay al-Adil; U.S. forces opened fire on the team from Reuters and killed Waleed Khaled, who was shot in the head, and wounded Haider Kadhem,” an Interior Ministry official quoted the police incident report as saying.

“I heard shooting, looked up and saw an American sniper on the roof of the shopping centre,” cameraman Kadhem, who was wounded in the back, told colleagues who arrived at the scene.

The wounded cameraman is the only eyewitness.
Thing is the US army has chosen to detain him. It is not known whether he received medical attention and where he is.

Two Iraqi colleagues who arrived on the scene minutes after the shooting were also briefly detained, then released.

“They treated us like dogs. They made us, … including Khaled who was wounded and asking for water, sit in the sun on the road,” Reuters Television soundman Mohammed Idriss said.

Asked to comment on the incident, U.S. spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Steven Boylan said it was being investigated.

A U.S. statement said: “Task Force Baghdad units responded to a terrorist attack on an Iraqi Police convoy around 11:20 a.m. (0720 GMT) Aug. 28 in central Baghdad, which killed and wounded several Iraqi Police.

And it doesn’t get better.

Iraqis complain of frequent killings of civilians by U.S. forces, most of which go unreported and uninvestigated. American commanders say their troops are trained to be vigilant against suicide bombers and to avoid firing on civilians.

Reuters correspondent Michael Georgy, who arrived at the scene about an hour after the shooting, said the soundman’s body was still in the driver’s seat, the face covered by a cloth.

Entry and exit wounds could be seen on the face indicating shots from the victim’s right. There were several bullet holes in the windscreen and at least four wounds in the chest.

His U.S. military and Reuters press cards, clipped to his shirt, were caked in blood. In one, there were two bullet holes.

To the right of the scene, a U.S. soldier, apparently a sniper, was posted on the roof of a shopping centre.

A British security adviser working for Reuters said it seemed likely that high-velocity rounds had been fired at the car from roughly the direction of that building.

The car, an ordinary, white four-door passenger vehicle, was heading down an offramp, about 200 metres from a main road.

U.S. armoured vehicles blocked off the scene. After a brief inspection of the car, they allowed Reuters staff and the dead man’s family to have it towed away. One soldier said there were no suspicious items in the car. Colleagues and relatives were handed a military body bag to remove the corpse.

A U.S. officer said: “They drove into fighting.”

As Waleed’s tearful relatives inspected the body at the scene, a U.S. soldier said: “Don’t bother. It’s not worth it.”

A few other soldiers joked among themselves just a few feet (metres) from the body.

A Reuters cameraman Ali al-Mashhadani, was arrested in Ramadi by US soldiers three weeks ago.
He is being held without charges at Abu Ghraib, has not been seen and those attempting to help him have not been allowed near him and have not been told what he is charged wit.h He has a tentative hearing scheduled Monday.

67 journalists and media assistants have been killed in Iraq since March 2003.
Maybe Eason Jordan was right.