30/05/2006

Tributes paid to Iraq bomb journalists

Tributes have been paid to two British television journalists who were killed in a car bomb in Iraq on Monday.

Camera operator Paul Douglas, 48, and soundman James Brolan, 42, died when the army convoy they were travelling in was hit by a roadside bomb.

Their colleague, reporter Kimberly Dozier, was critically injured in the blast. The 39-year-old, who has dual US and British citizenship, is being treated at a US military hospital in Germany.

All three were working for US new network CBS in Baghdad and were travelling with a team from the US 4th Infantry Division, when the bomb exploded.

A US army officer and an Iraqi interpreter also died in the blast.

Mr Douglas, who had a wife, Linda, as well as two adult daughters and three grandchildren, was "one of those people you wanted around when things got dicey," one of his colleagues said.

CBS London correspondent Mark Phillips said: "He could charm his way through hostile country, he could defuse the belligerent tension at an armed roadblock."

Mr Brolan was also married to wife Geraldine and had an eighteen-year-old son and a twelve-year-old daughter. A statement released by his family said: "James had a natural way with people and was always in demand as the person to go with to the world's trouble spots; always putting the locals at ease, winning friends everywhere he went and always putting in his best effort."

(KMcA/SP)

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