Report: Dutch cameraman killed by Russian cluster bomb

Aug 15, 2008, 6:35 GMT

Amsterdam - International human rights organization Human Rights Watch (HWR) told international media on Friday it has evidence RTL television cameraman Stan Storimans was killed by Russian cluster bombs, despite an international ban on such bombs.

Storimans was killed in the Georgian city of Gori while reporting about the conflict over South Ossetia between Georgia and Russia.

Two other journalists, Dutch Jeroen Akkermans and Israeli Zadok Yehezkeli, sustained injuries in the same incident.

HRW says it spoke with several eye witnesses and documented video and photo material of the damage caused by the bombing that killed seven.

In May, more than 100 countries banned the use of cluster bombs at a convention in Ireland.

A cluster bomb contains many bombs which explode once touching the ground. However, international experts say many of them do not explode immediately, causing injuries to civilians up to years after a conflict has ended.

The HRW report comes one day after Dutch journalists association NVJ told Dutch media it would investigate the death of the Dutch cameraman.

Meanwhile the Dutch wife of Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvili sent an e-mail to Dutch news wire ANP on Friday expressing her sorrow over the death of the Dutch cameraman.

On Wednesday, Saakashvili told international media his wife would be present at the Dutch cameraman's funeral, the date of which is still unknown.