Justice Might Finally Come for James Miller...

Israeli soldier 'murdered' U.K. journalist


LONDON, April 6 (UPI) -- The shooting of British filmmaker James Miller by an Israeli soldier in the Gaza Strip was an act of murder, an inquest jury concluded Thursday.

Miller, 34, was filming a documentary in a Palestinian refugee camp in 2003 when he was shot in the neck by a soldier from the Israeli Defense Force.

The soldier was cleared of misusing firearms by an Israeli investigation in April 2005.

But the British jury decided that Miller had been deliberately shot on the night of May 2, 2003.

A jury spokeswoman said: "We, the jury, unanimously agree this was an unlawful shooting with the intention of killing Mr. James Miller.

"Therefore we can come to no other conclusion than that Mr. Miller was indeed murdered."

Miller's death was captured on film by an Associated Press cameraman and included in his documentary Death in Gaza. Along with his crew, he was waiting in a Palestinian home during housing demolitions and eventually approached Israeli soldiers to ask if it was safe to leave the area. He was waving a white flag and shouting that he was a British journalist when he was fatally wounded in the neck.

The jury spokeswoman added: "It is a fact that from day one of this inquest the Israeli authorities have not been forthcoming in the investigation into the circumstances surrounding Mr. Miller's death."

Metropolitan Police Department Inspector Robert Anderson told the inquest Thursday that Israel had been "uncooperative" with their investigations, which had found no evidence either that Miller had posed a threat to the IDF or that there had been any Palestinian fire directed at the soldiers' position.

Foreign Office Minister Kim Howells said he was not surprised at the verdict. The government was "disappointed" that Israel had not held anyone to account for Miller's death, he added.