Unidentified armed men on Thursday night killed Raja Asad Hameed, senior reporter of a local English daily. The incident took place at 10pm, when the armed men came to Hameed’s house and rang the doorbell. When he opened the door, the men shot and killed him. A large number of journalists from Islamabad and Rawalpindi rushed to the Central Hospital and took Hameed’s body to his residence. link

UPDATE: The Crime Investigation Agency (CIA) and Sadiqabad Police have launched an investigation into the murder.

“The crime scene has been properly preserved with footage and drafting and police have also recorded statements of some eye-witnesses,” they said.

“Hameed’s mobile phone data of two hours before his killing has been also collected through mobile detection system and if investigators failed to establish any link with the culprits with the help of this data they would compile a comprehensive investigation record of last 48 days including mobile phone calls and his routine life to trace the culprits,” said the sources. link

Journalist murder cases are rarely solved in Pakistan and concerns were recently raised as to the worsening situation for journalists in the country. Meanwhile Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani announced a donation of 0.5 million rupees to the family of Hameed.

Mohammed Yunis Mohammed, a Mosul policeman, had been drinking when he approached the home of neighbour Salam al-Dosaki, a journalist with the local al-Hadba newspaper, police said. An argument ensued between the two men and Mohammed, an Arab, shot and killed Dosaki, a Kurd, on his doorstep. Mohammed was in police custody on Thursday evening, police said. Police said it was a personal dispute. link

“This is a outrageous and appalling assassination” said Omar Faruk Osman, NUSOJ Secretary General. “Said Tahlil Ahmed was assassinated because of his strong and professional commitment for independent journalism… Enough is enough, the government of President Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed and the International community have to act swiftly to end targeted violence against journalists.” link

Said Tahlil Ahmed is the second journalist killed this year. Hasan Mayow was killed in the town of Afgoi on New Year’s day. Reuters have a timeline of media killings and kidnaps in Somalia.
Photo from Reuters via the BBC News website.
UPDATE: Thurs 5 Feb – Al-Shabab claim no involvement in the killing,

“Yes its there that the movement of Al-Shabab group officials called the entire directors of the local radio stations which operate in Mogadishu for a press conference, and said was killed by masked men as we have received the report from Mogadishu, and I am strongly condemning the perpetrators who were behind the killing of late said Tahlil, in fact Said was a very close friend of main and we used to have wonderful chats either through the wire or live, and I pray for his soul to rest in eternal peace Amen” said Sheikh Mukhtar Robow Abu Mansoor the spokesman of Al-Shabab movement speaking to Somaliweyn radio. link

Meanwhile Said Tahlil Ahmed was buried this morning in the Moalim Nur cemetery about 13km south of the capital,

Tens of very shocked media colleagues and relatives attended the burial of the journalist who was killed by gunmen on Wednesday.
At least 12 radio stations have been airing Qur’anic verses to show respect for the slain colleague since Wednesday. The radios went off air on Thursday to mourn their murdered colleague.
“The radio stations will be off air until tonight” a director of one of Mogadishu-based radio told APA on condition of anonymity for security reasons while narrating Tahlil Ahmed’s killing. link

No other profession calls on its practitioners to lay down their lives for their art save the armed forces and, in Sri Lanka, journalism. In the course of the past few years, the independent media have increasingly come under attack. Electronic and print-media institutions have been burnt, bombed, sealed and coerced. Countless journalists have been harassed, threatened and killed. It has been my honour to belong to all those categories and now especially the last.

I have been in the business of journalism a good long time. Indeed, 2009 will be The Sunday Leader’s 15th year. Many things have changed in Sri Lanka during that time, and it does not need me to tell you that the greater part of that change has been for the worse. We find ourselves in the midst of a civil war ruthlessly prosecuted by protagonists whose bloodlust knows no bounds. Terror, whether perpetrated by terrorists or the state, has become the order of the day. Indeed, murder has become the primary tool whereby the state seeks to control the organs of liberty. Today it is the journalists, tomorrow it will be the judges. For neither group have the risks ever been higher or the stakes lower.

Why then do we do it? I often wonder that. After all, I too am a husband, and the father of three wonderful children. I too have responsibilities and obligations that transcend my profession, be it the law or journalism. Is it worth the risk? Many people tell me it is not. Friends tell me to revert to the bar, and goodness knows it offers a better and safer livelihood. Others, including political leaders on both sides, have at various times sought to induce me to take to politics, going so far as to offer me ministries of my choice. Diplomats, recognising the risk journalists face in Sri Lanka, have offered me safe passage and the right of residence in their countries. Whatever else I may have been stuck for, I have not been stuck for choice.

But there is a calling that is yet above high office, fame, lucre and security. It is the call of conscience.

The Sunday Leader has been a controversial newspaper because we say it like we see it: whether it be a spade, a thief or a murderer, we call it by that name. We do not hide behind euphemism. The investigative articles we print are supported by documentary evidence thanks to the public-spiritedness of citizens who at great risk to themselves pass on this material to us. We have exposed scandal after scandal, and never once in these 15 years has anyone proved us wrong or successfully prosecuted us.

The free media serve as a mirror in which the public can see itself sans mascara and styling gel. From us you learn the state of your nation, and especially its management by the people you elected to give your children a better future. Sometimes the image you see in that mirror is not a pleasant one. But while you may grumble in the privacy of your armchair, the journalists who hold the mirror up to you do so publicly and at great risk to themselves. That is our calling, and we do not shirk it.

Every newspaper has its angle, and we do not hide the fact that we have ours. Our commitment is to see Sri Lanka as a transparent, secular, liberal democracy. Think about those words, for they each has profound meaning. Transparent because government must be openly accountable to the people and never abuse their trust. Secular because in a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural society such as ours, secularism offers the only common ground by which we might all be united. Liberal because we recognise that all human beings are created different, and we need to accept others for what they are and not what we would like them to be. And democratic… well, if you need me to explain why that is important, you’d best stop buying this paper.

The Sunday Leader has never sought safety by unquestioningly articulating the majority view. Let’s face it, that is the way to sell newspapers. On the contrary, as our opinion pieces over the years amply demonstrate, we often voice ideas that many people find distasteful. For example, we have consistently espoused the view that while separatist terrorism must be eradicated, it is more important to address the root causes of terrorism, and urged government to view Sri Lanka’s ethnic strife in the context of history and not through the telescope of terrorism. We have also agitated against state terrorism in the so-called war against terror, and made no secret of our horror that Sri Lanka is the only country in the world routinely to bomb its own citizens. For these views we have been labelled traitors, and if this be treachery, we wear that label proudly.

Many people suspect that The Sunday Leader has a political agenda: it does not. If we appear more critical of the government than of the opposition it is only because we believe that – pray excuse cricketing argot – there is no point in bowling to the fielding side. Remember that for the few years of our existence in which the UNP was in office, we proved to be the biggest thorn in its flesh, exposing excess and corruption wherever it occurred. Indeed, the steady stream of embarrassing expos‚s we published may well have served to precipitate the downfall of that government.

Neither should our distaste for the war be interpreted to mean that we support the Tigers. The LTTE are among the most ruthless and bloodthirsty organisations ever to have infested the planet. There is no gainsaying that it must be eradicated. But to do so by violating the rights of Tamil citizens, bombing and shooting them mercilessly, is not only wrong but shames the Sinhalese, whose claim to be custodians of the dhamma is forever called into question by this savagery, much of which is unknown to the public because of censorship.

What is more, a military occupation of the country’s north and east will require the Tamil people of those regions to live eternally as second-class citizens, deprived of all self respect. Do not imagine that you can placate them by showering “development” and “reconstruction” on them in the post-war era. The wounds of war will scar them forever, and you will also have an even more bitter and hateful Diaspora to contend with. A problem amenable to a political solution will thus become a festering wound that will yield strife for all eternity. If I seem angry and frustrated, it is only because most of my countrymen – and all of the government – cannot see this writing so plainly on the wall.

It is well known that I was on two occasions brutally assaulted, while on another my house was sprayed with machine-gun fire. Despite the government’s sanctimonious assurances, there was never a serious police inquiry into the perpetrators of these attacks, and the attackers were never apprehended. In all these cases, I have reason to believe the attacks were inspired by the government. When finally I am killed, it will be the government that kills me.

The irony in this is that, unknown to most of the public, Mahinda and I have been friends for more than a quarter century. Indeed, I suspect that I am one of the few people remaining who routinely addresses him by his first name and uses the familiar Sinhala address oya when talking to him. Although I do not attend the meetings he periodically holds for newspaper editors, hardly a month passes when we do not meet, privately or with a few close friends present, late at night at President’s House. There we swap yarns, discuss politics and joke about the good old days. A few remarks to him would therefore be in order here.

Mahinda, when you finally fought your way to the SLFP presidential nomination in 2005, nowhere were you welcomed more warmly than in this column. Indeed, we broke with a decade of tradition by referring to you throughout by your first name. So well known were your commitments to human rights and liberal values that we ushered you in like a breath of fresh air. Then, through an act of folly, you got yourself involved in the Helping Hambantota scandal. It was after a lot of soul-
searching that we broke the story, at the same time urging you to return the money. By the time you did so several weeks later, a great blow had been struck to your reputation. It is one you are still trying to live down.

You have told me yourself that you were not greedy for the presidency. You did not have to hanker after it: it fell into your lap. You have told me that your sons are your greatest joy, and that you love spending time with them, leaving your brothers to operate the machinery of state. Now, it is clear to all who will see that that machinery has operated so well that my sons and daughter do not themselves have a father.

In the wake of my death I know you will make all the usual sanctimonious noises and call upon the police to hold a swift and thorough inquiry. But like all the inquiries you have ordered in the past, nothing will come of this one, too. For truth be told, we both know who will be behind my death, but dare not call his name. Not just my life, but yours too, depends on it.

Sadly, for all the dreams you had for our country in your younger days, in just three years you have reduced it to rubble. In the name of patriotism you have trampled on human rights, nurtured unbridled corruption and squandered public money like no other President before you. Indeed, your conduct has been like a small child suddenly let loose in a toyshop. That analogy is perhaps inapt because no child could have caused so much blood to be spilled on this land as you have, or trampled on the rights of its citizens as you do. Although you are now so drunk with power that you cannot see it, you will come to regret your sons having so rich an inheritance of blood. It can only bring tragedy. As for me, it is with a clear conscience that I go to meet my Maker. I wish, when your time finally comes, you could do the same. I wish.

As for me, I have the satisfaction of knowing that I walked tall and bowed to no man. And I have not travelled this journey alone. Fellow journalists in other branches of the media walked with me: most of them are now dead, imprisoned without trial or exiled in far-off lands. Others walk in the shadow of death that your Presidency has cast on the freedoms for which you once fought so hard. You will never be allowed to forget that my death took place under your watch. As anguished as I know you will be, I also know that you will have no choice but to protect my killers: you will see to it that the guilty one is never convicted. You have no choice. I feel sorry for you, and Shiranthi will have a long time to spend on her knees when next she goes for Confession for it is not just her owns sins which she must confess, but those of her extended family that keeps you in office.

As for the readers of The Sunday Leader, what can I say but Thank You for supporting our mission. We have espoused unpopular causes, stood up for those too feeble to stand up for themselves, locked horns with the high and mighty so swollen with power that they have forgotten their roots, exposed corruption and the waste of your hard-earned tax rupees, and made sure that whatever the propaganda of the day, you were allowed to hear a contrary view. For this I – and my family – have now paid the price that I have long known I will one day have to pay. I am – and have always been – ready for that. I have done nothing to prevent this outcome: no security, no precautions. I want my murderer to know that I am not a coward like he is, hiding behind human shields while condemning thousands of innocents to death. What am I among so many? It has long been written that my life would be taken, and by whom. All that remains to be written is when.

That The Sunday Leader will continue fighting the good fight, too, is written. For I did not fight this fight alone. Many more of us have to be – and will be – killed before The Leader is laid to rest. I hope my assassination will be seen not as a defeat of freedom but an inspiration for those who survive to step up their efforts. Indeed, I hope that it will help galvanise forces that will usher in a new era of human liberty in our beloved motherland. I also hope it will open the eyes of your President to the fact that however many are slaughtered in the name of patriotism, the human spirit will endure and flourish. Not all the Rajapakses combined can kill that.

People often ask me why I take such risks and tell me it is a matter of time before I am bumped off. Of course I know that: it is inevitable. But if we do not speak out now, there will be no one left to speak for those who cannot, whether they be ethnic minorities, the disadvantaged or the persecuted. An example that has inspired me throughout my career in journalism has been that of the German theologian, Martin Niem”ller. In his youth he was an anti-Semite and an admirer of Hitler. As Nazism took hold in Germany, however, he saw Nazism for what it was: it was not just the Jews Hitler sought to extirpate, it was just about anyone with an alternate point of view. Niem”ller spoke out, and for his trouble was incarcerated in the Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps from 1937 to 1945, and very nearly executed. While incarcerated, Niem”ller wrote a poem that, from the first time I read it in my teenage years, stuck hauntingly in my mind:

First they came for the Jews

and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for the Communists

and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists

and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for me

and there was no one left to speak out for me.

If you remember nothing else, remember this: The Leader is there for you, be you Sinhalese, Tamil, Muslim, low-caste, homosexual, dissident or disabled. Its staff will fight on, unbowed and unafraid, with the courage to which you have become accustomed. Do not take that commitment for granted. Let there be no doubt that whatever sacrifices we journalists make, they are not made for our own glory or enrichment: they are made for you. Whether you deserve their sacrifice is another matter. As for me, God knows I tried.

The Sunday Leader has a farewell page with words from a great many friends, relatives and colleagues. This entry is cross posted on the From the Frontline blog.

Winning the war? Then there must be elections around the corner. It is no secret that the war has become Mahinda Rajapakse’s recipe for electoral success; but what surprises many is that he is able, time and time again, to persuade the Sri Lankan people – or at least his Sinhala-Buddhist constituency – that victory is but a gunshot away. link

The printing presses of The Sunday Leader were attacked in late 2007. While earlier this week gunmen attacked a TV station near the capital.

French, tall, straight-backed, graceful, striking; she never conducted herself with anything less than poise and style. Brave and funny, her legendary moods could be capricious and mercurial, but her sense of purpose was unwavering: “take picture” was her heavily-accented war cry, and take pictures she did: brilliantly. She was only one person. But with her death in October, aged only 45, the gang suddenly seems very small indeed, reduced far more than ever imaginable by a single loss.

Despite the fame that followed the recognition of her work she was curiously unaffected by the hubris of vanity suffered by so many of her peers. “Hoohoohoo,” she laughed to me, at herself, one afternoon in Kosovo on hearing the news of an award she had been given for one particular frame. “I don’t do much, me, but what I do, I do well.”

Photography was part of her genetic make-up. Her father Pierre Boulat was a star Life photographer in the fifties and sixties. Her mother Annie set up the French photo agency Cosmos. Alex lived and breathed photography. It was part of her essence, an ingrained part of her soul. She was totally unremmitting in her drive to capture images, and tough on herself in dedication of that pursuit. However she regarded herself fundamentally as an artisan practising a skill, and remained uncorrupted by her many accolades and awards.

Born in 1962, as a young woman Alex was initially persuaded against a career in photography by her father and instead studied fine art at the Beaux-Arts in Paris before working as an artist. Always attracted by extremes, part of her heart forever the rebel, she was drawn into the sub-culture art scene before one day, with typical unpredictability and vehemence, ridding her studio of her canvasses and starting work as a photographer.

She won her spurs as a war photographer covering the Balkan conflicts of 1991-1999. Through Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo she became one of the tight-knit gang of journalists who were so severely defined and bonded by the experience in a way not seen since their Vietnam-era predecessors.

Though her work became ever more refined as her talent developed, she never became cynical or hardened by her exposure to so much violence. She could shed tears, even sob, in the aftermath of witnessing the suffering of others, and her essential empathy with her subjects was one of the hallmarks of her work. Indeed, after the Balkan wars had finished she began to move away from high-impact, quick selling war images, and explore in detail the lives of war’s victims, especially women. Nor was Alex foolish enough to be limited by the restrictive label of ‘war-photographer’. Her curiousity was far too hungry, and was responsible for the number of features she later shot for National Geographic. In 2001, two days before the attacks on the World Trade Centre, Alex founded VII, a co-operative photo agency, with six colleagues. VII emerged quickly as the Magnum of the digital age, specialising in covering cultural and political conflict as well as war. Her dexterity was proven again, as if it needed to be, a year later when she won the World Press Photo award for her photographs of Yves St Laurent’s last show. Forty years earlier her father had shot the fashion designer’s first show.

Utterly  and  delightfully  eccentric, whether in war or peace, the jungle or an office, her travails were accompanied by the clink of the I-Ching coins she used as an aid to her decision process; clouds of cigarette smoke, and the frequent expostulation of “putain” – ‘whore’. Her laughter rolled up from her belly to her teeth; her tears were many and uncontrived. She was a great woman, and enriched the world of her friends with her presence.

We all  heaved a quiet sigh of relief, however, when she met Issa Freij.
Her turbulence and drama had often been reflected in her choice of relationships with men. Now though, with Issa, she seemed suddenly calmer, contented by deep happiness. This spring, photographing my daughter and sharing in the delight of my own fortunes of family, she told me that she had found in Issa the love of her life. It was deserved.

In Ramallah in June this year, where she was working while living with Issa, Alexandra suffered an aneurism. Moved to a hospital in Paris, she never regained consciousness and died on the 5th October.

Goodbye Alexandra. You leave much behind. To the world you bequeathe an iconic body of images: unfinished symphony and befitting will of a pre-eminent woman photojournalist at the top of your profession. To your friends and family, your mother, your sisters and Issa, you leave admiration and a terrible missing. Mostly though, you leave love. I hope you find some barricades in heaven.

Never again, that joyous smile, the heavy French accent,
Her laughing dismissal of my struggling with her tongue,
The enquiries of when and who and where.
What’s safe?  Shall we go there?  Did you know that….?
How long ago is Croatia?  In Sarajevo, incarcerated through the winter of ’93.
Huddled together in the dining room, we seemed to eat gruel, yet so much
Better off than the people, the subjects of
Her reportage, always the people.  When we cameramen
Were ducking as the sniper fired, trying to get that shot of the smoke puff,
She was shooting the kids sheltering behind the dumpster, the woman
With mud on her face fresh from her husband’s grave,
The old couple in the graveyard of wooden markers.

On the L’Armee de l’Air, already taxiing, its tail ramp closing on Bukavu
Only to inexplicably stop. The ramp winding down. And there she was,
Alex running up, bundling her kit in the back, a momentary.
Pause for that one last persistent passenger.
Clambering over stuff lashed to the floor, she slammed down
Beside me, grabbed my face, kissing me enthusiastically.
An effusive greeting, a celebration we were both still alive
Because the last time I’d seen her was in the horrible
Carnage of Kigali as the massacres wound down;
She shooting the child beside It’s dead mother, the young husband
Carrying his wife’s body away to bury between the banana trees.

It’s breakfast.
In the Mandarin, Jakharta, a five star hotel in the middle of a crisis
I’m filling my plate with smoked fish when
Two hands blind fold my eyes.
“It’s me!”, “Alex!!!” I explode, the fish forgotten.
I Hug her. She’s so proud. Her first National
Geographic assignment – women in Indonesia.
I’m about to fly back into Timor’s hell.

The second Intifada.
Jenin.
Jerome and Alex in the AFP landrover behind me.
We manage to sneak through their iron grip.
She clucks, puckering her lips in that oh, so French way
“So bad these Israelis”.  She’s shooting the small boy lying
In the hospital with half a head, a big bandage over his eyes.
From the hospital we’re running. Clambering over rubble
Newly made in Palestine, by Israel.
Hiding in houses, running between blocks, over
A ridiculously high wall to drop 15 feet the other side
Then Alex is talking to a granny.  They’ve no food.  Their boy’s
Been gone these past 10 days. Granny cries into her blue scarf.
Alex’s eye to the viewfinder. A grim set of her narrow lips
She touches granny’s shoulder as we run on.

in the AFP rabbit hutch in Baghdad’s Information
Ministry. Between packing crate partitions, smoke curls up from
Ashtrayed cigarettes, a tangle of cables,
Computers overheating as they send material out to a
Waiting world. Small groups talking, wondering, asking,
Heads together, anxious, but determined to stay.

She comes to me a couple of evenings before the war,
The American nets have bolted.  Other people are leaving,
“Tim…. what do you think? I think we stay, huh?!” she cocks her head
In that way she had, her cigarette between two fingers.
“Bien sur.  We’ll be OK. Stick with Jerome.  We’ll all be in the
Palestine together…”
“Yes, I’m sure…”
But her eyes were nervous. The strain showing. The toll on everyone,
Ripping relationships apart, confirming some
And cementing others for always.

So memory stretches and contracts across seventeen years
Of meetings and partings.  Members of an exclusive, small
Ever changing community of the damned…. damned by our
Own choice to see the very worst of humanity. And yet
Alex always made sure that, where as we went for the
Bang, bang – she put the human face on the page. She cared
For the desperate she framed. She was as transient as any of us
Moving from theatre to theatre, making pictures that mattered.

Until the last time I saw her. I could have bunked it. Too late,
Too far, too much effort in the daily rush of things, I’d rather go home
To sleep, but there was something else; that it was her work, which so many
Times I’d witnessed in the making, being celebrated,
That I’d see Alex again, far from the desperation for once.
I was drawn because I’m off the road – so who knew when I’d see her again?
Our connection wasn’t normal or regular like that.

It took a week for me to find out she’d died.
Five months to even know that she was ill – and by then it was too late.
But that night at the Front Line Club – she’d thought she’d be the foreigner,
An outsider to the the anglophone circle of newsmongers and practitioners, But was overwhelmed by the response of an audience she didn’t know
Cared or even recognised her work.  The place was full.
She was thrilled, almost to the point of being unable to speak.
I’m so pleased I made the effort – we dined together afterwards
She insisting I sat beside her, the queen for the night. I was honoured.

Now, I’m at a loss. Although I didn’t speak or write to her frequently,
When we met in some terrible place, some place before it became
Terrible because it would, there would be a moment of deep joy
And then we’d remember or think of each other now and again
Through the weeks and months between, till our next unscheduled meeting.
But now there will be no more meetings.
Alex… I am bereft that I’ll never see you across a bullet riddled street,
In the lobby of a dreadful hotel,  in some shitty place.
A bientot….

To those at The Times he was known as “McGrory the Story”, a reporter who could write, a writer who could report.

Danny was at his happiest away from “Fortress Wapping” and the “Boss Class” he often said had little time for him, preferring to promote those, he believed, who used the personal pronoun frequently in their copy rather than someone who knew he was never the focus of a story.

He had many close escapes but rarely wrote about them. A few days after Terry Lloyd’s tragic death, Danny too was “shot-up” badly on the outskirts of Basra. The British Army had waved him through together with three other vehicles driven by journalists with the words, “Its all clear ahead.”

A Fedayeen checkpoint straddled the road, partially obscured by the remains of what was once a house. Danny was the last of the vehicles to spin round to make their escape and took most of the fire from two Kalashnikovs.

Bullets smashed the back window, door and one lodged in the engine. Having passed beneath his seat, another ripped through the roof beside his head and into the plastic petrol containers so that it spilled back on to him.

He limped his four-wheel drive back to safety where colleagues helped patch it up and reluctantly headed to Kuwait for repairs. Before he had crossed the border, he was ambushed again, this time by kids who smashed the windscreen with bricks.

That night he called colleagues begging them not to tell the office, fearing they would pull him out because of the danger.

Days later, a smiling Danny was back beside his colleagues in a repaired vehicle with fresh supplies for everyone. He bought too flowers, which privately he placed at the spot where Terry Lloyd’s wrecked vehicle remained.

“Your escape would make a great piece,” a colleague told him. Danny looked horrified, “Why would anyone want to read about a fat old fool who almost got himself killed when thousands are leaving Basra all with their own stories?”

Danny cared about the people he worked with and reported on andremained in touch with many, especially those from the Balkans where amid the chaos he excelled.

Like his late friend Kurt Schork, he loved Sarajevo and cared passionately for its people. Once, together with his treasured long time colleague John Downing, he spent $100 on eggs for a family who had not tasted them for a year.

One of many tributes posted on the Times website last week summed up Danny’s relationship with the Bosnian capital and its people.

Nikoleta Milasevic wrote : “Sarajevo will always remember him. I was his fixer and you know what, I will stay his fixer forever. A man who was helping us in Bosnia to find the truth and a real friend.”

The thought of websites terrified Danny. He was rarely at one with technology and, despite never taking a drink until after filing, colleagues would wait for the “McGrory eruption” as copy vanished from his screen time and again.

The one time he was assured of engineering a way for the laptop to work from virtually anywhere in the world was when his beloved Hoops were playing and he would kick every ball with the Celtic players at an enormous unknown cost to his employers.

On the Monday he died, Danny had just returned from Pakistan where he had been backgrounding on a terror trial. He was excited by what he had found out, talking about the previously unknown links between would-be British bombers and tribal chiefs.

He would, he promised, tell more the following night but first we had to watch the Hoops play AC Milan in the Champions League.