BBC cameraman dies in Iraqi mine blast

A BBC cameraman has been killed and another member of the production crew injured following a landmine blast in northern Iraq yesterday.
At lunchtime yesterday, a four-person BBC team arrived at Kifri, a town in the southern part of the Kurdish area of Iraq, on a filming trip. Cameraman Kaveh Golestan stepped out of their car onto a mine and was killed instantly, and producer Stuart Hughes was caught by the blast and injured his foot. Correspondent Jim Muir and the local translator were unhurt.
Kaveh Golestan, 52, an Iranian national, was a Pulitzer prize-winning photographer acclaimed for his work during the Iranian Revolution and the gassing of the Kurds in the 1988 Iran-Iraq War.
Kaveh had worked for the BBC in a freelance capacity for about three years after becoming the BBC's contract cameraman in Tehran in September 2000. He had long experience in journalism and had also worked for many western news organisations. He leaves a wife and a 19-year-old son.
BBC Director of News, Richard Sambrook, offered sympathies to Kaveh's family and friends, adding: "Kaveh Golestan was an outstanding photojournalist who had worked in support of freedom of expression in his native Iran and elsewhere and was well known to many western news organisations.
"This once again underlines the dangers faced by news teams covering the war in Iraq."
(GMcG)