30407: (news) Chamberlain: Haiti-Journalist Killed (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   By STEVENSON JACOBS

   PORT-AU-PRINCE, May 17 (AP) -- Gunmen killed a journalist in
northwestern Haiti, shooting him 11 times outside his fiancee's house, his
radio station said Thursday.
   Alix Joseph, director of private Radio Provinciale in the port town of
Gonaives, was ambushed late Wednesday by two assailants as he sat in a car
with his fiancee, who escaped unharmed, said Frantz Justin Altidor, a
journalist at the station.
   "She screamed 'Oh my God, they got us,' and started running. She thought
Alix was right behind her," Altidor said. Colleagues returned hours later
and found Joseph's body on the floor of the car.
   Police have not identified suspects or established a motive.
   Altidor said he did not know if Joseph, 38, had received threats, but
said some people were unhappy with the station's reporting on local crime.
   Altidor said Radio Provinciale and other stations in Gonaives went off
the air Thursday to protest insecurity in the town, a base for armed gangs
blamed for a string of recent killings.
   Last month, gunmen in the city shot and killed a former journalist with
ties to ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide while he slept. His killers
were not caught.
   Attacks on journalists are common in Haiti, but they have dropped since
the 2006 election of President Rene Preval, according to the New York-based
Committee to Protect Journalists.