Guardian Unlimited

Special report ITN libel case ITN

 

 
LM closes after losing libel action
31 March: LM, the magazine formerly known as Living Marxism, has closed after losing a libel action brought by ITN over an article in which it accused the broadcaster of misrepresenting one of the most enduring images of the Bosnian war.

The verdict

ITN in £375,000 libel victory
15 March: ITN and two reporters won a resounding £375,000 libel victory in the high court yesterday over a magazine's accusations that they had deliberately misrepresented an image that came to symbolise the atrocities of the Bosnian war.


Ed Vulliamy: eyewitness to genocide

Poison in the well of history
Guardian journalist Ed Vulliamy, who saw the Bosnian concentration camps first hand, on why ITN's libel win is a victory for history.

Journalist Ed Vulliamy online
Ed Vulliamy was the first newspaper journalist to go inside the camps, with ITN's reporters. You read his live discussion here.


August 1992: the original reports

Macabre trade in weary hostages of misfortune
'Are you a prisoner?' 'I don't know. This is not a prison,' replied Fehim Berzic, his eyes filled with tears.

Shame of camp Omarska
`I don't want to tell any lies, but I cannot tell the truth,' says the young man, emaciated, sunken-eyed, and attacking his watery bean stew like a famished dog, his spindly hands shaking.

Bosnia: the picture that shocked the world


The case

High stakes in battle over Serbian guilt
ITN libel trial: Terrified eyes of a camp doctor said more than celebrity campaigning or the might of a giant news organisation

LM: One man band with 'big mouth and broad mind'


Original video from ITN (For both reports, use Mozilla Firefox, since Internet Explorer doesn't work well. Scroll down the page to find links for these videos.)

News at Ten report (2nd and 6th images on page)
By Penny Marshall from August 6, 1992

Channel 4 News report (3rd and 4th images on page)
By Ian Williams from August 6,1992


Key links

ITN special report

LM magazine

International criminal tribunal for former Yugoslavia
 

 Recent articles
31.03.00   LM closes after losing libel action
30.03.00   LM magazine closes after failed libel action
15.03.00   Poison in the well of history
15.03.00   High stakes in battle over Serbian guilt
15.03.00   One man band with 'big mouth and broad mind'
15.03.00   ITN in £375,000 libel victory
14.03.00   ITN Bosnia reporters win libel damages
11.03.00   Bosnian camp 'not a prison'
10.03.00   ITN tried to crush critical leftwing journal, jury told
09.03.00   Doctor's secret Serb camp photos
01.03.00   ITN reporter 'bent over backwards for accuracy'
29.02.00   ITN denies Bosnia report 'fabrication'
04.08.98   Death that cheated justice
02.02.97   I stand by my story
28.07.96   Who cares as judgement falls on Serb hell camp?
 
  How the story broke
The story of the camps
The background to the case from the journalists who were there.

 
  Background
19 February, 1996: Horror hidden beneath ice and lies
Ed Vulliamy returns to Omarska.

 
A destiny worse than war
The story of Fikret, the young Bosnian whose emaciated torso, behind the barbed wire of Trnopolje concentration camp, became a symbol of the cynical slaughter in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

 
2 February, 1997: I stand by my story
 
  The camps and war crimes
Death that cheated justice
4 August, 1998: It was the look of venomous hatred I won't forget.

 
28 July, 1996: Who cares as judgement falls on Serb hell camp?
 
8 June, 1996: 'Some were thin, others skeletal'