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press coverage:
LM press releases
PRESS RELEASE
29 January 1997
ITN has tried to have every copy of LM pulped. Why?
On Friday 24 January, LM magazine received a letter from ITN's
lawyers threatening libel action unless the editor agreed to pulp
the entire February issue, apologise to their journalists and
pay damages.
This threat was in response to the article "The picture that fooled
the world" by German journalist Thomas Deichmann, which reveals
the truth about the famous ITN pictures of Bosnian Muslims apparently
imprisoned behind a barbed wire fence at Trnopolje camp in August
1992.
The pictures provoked an international outcry and were seen by
much of the world as proof that the Bosnian Serbs were running
Nazi-style 'concentration camps'. But Deichmann, who was called
as an expert witness to the International War Crimes Tribunal
at The Hague, says that the image of Muslims behind barbed wire
was created by 'camera angles and editing'.
Deichmann has revisited Trnopolje and has also seen unused video
footage that shows how this powerful image was shot. He found
that:
- there was no barbed wire fence surrounding the Trnopolje camp
- the camp was a collection centre for refugees, not a prison
- the refugees in the picture were not surrounded by barbed wire.
The barbed wire surrounded the news team who were filming from
inside a small compound next to the camp.
Mick Hume, LM editor says:
'We stand 100% behind Thomas Deichmann's article. There is one
simple way to resolve the issue. ITN should show the full, unedited
footage which its team filmed at Trnopolje on the 5 August 1992.
Then everybody will know the truth. |
