Family of U.S. War Reporter Slain in Syria, Sues the Bashar Al-Assad regime

American journalist Marie Colvin, who died in Syria in 2012

BEIRUT - The family of American journalist Marie Colvin, who died in Syria in 2012, has filed a wrongful death lawsuit in a U.S. court, accusing the Syrian government of deliberately killing her.
Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik were killed in the besieged Syrian city of Homs in 2012 while reporting on the Syrian conflict, now in its sixth year.
The Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad targeted and killed US reporter Marie Colvin in February 2012 to stop her from covering government atrocities, according to a lawsuit filed in US court.
The Syrian military intercepted Colvin's communications and unleashed a barrage of rocket fire on her position in the besieged city of Homs, according to documents filed in US district court in Washington.
Colvin, then reporting for the London Sunday Times, was killed with French photographer Remi Ochlik. British photographer Paul Conroy, French reporter Edith Bouvier, and Syrian media defender Wael al-Omar were wounded in the same attack.
The lawsuit, filed in Washington on Saturday and seen by Reuters, said Syrian officials deliberately targeted rockets against a makeshift broadcast studio where Colvin and other reporters were living and working.
The suit alleged the attack was part of a plan orchestrated at the highest levels of the Syrian government to silence local and international media 'as part of its effort to crush political opposition'.
The lawsuit included as evidence a copy of an August 2011 fax which it alleges was sent from Syria's National Security Bureau instructing security bodies to launch military and intelligence campaigns against 'those who tarnish the image of Syria in foreign media and international organisations'.
Advocacy group Reporters With out Borders said it supported the lawsuit.
The group's secretary-general, Christophe Deloire, said the group 'hopes these efforts will help to expose the truth, namely that these journalists were deliberately targeted and killed because they were providing information about the Syrian army's crimes against civilians.'
A murder and attempted murder investigation was launched in France in 2012 into the death of Ochlik and wounding of another journalist, Edith Bouvier, in the same attack.
Reporters Without Borders, as an interested party in the case, said it will submit the Colvin family's U.S. lawsuit to the judge in charge of the French investigation on Monday.