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LONDON, Feb 11, 2013 (AFP)
British photojournalist Tim Hetherington, who was killed covering the Libyan uprising, was a “wonderful humanitarian”, his mother Judith said following Monday’s inquest into his death.
The Oscar-nominated film-maker and war photographer, a US dual national, was photographing clashes between Libyan dictator Moamer Kadhafi’s forces and rebel fighters in Misrata when he was caught in a mortar attack on April 20, 2011.
“He was an image maker and storyteller, that is how he liked to be described,” his mother said after the inquest into his death at Westminster Coroner’s Court in central London.
“He was a wonderful humanitarian.”
In England, inquests are held to examine sudden or unexplained deaths, but they do not apportion blame.
Deputy Westminster coroner Shirley Radcliffe recorded a verdict of unlawful killing.
“He was not a soldier, he was an innocent photographer,” she said.
She determined the cause of death as a “massive haemorrhage” caused by shrapnel from mortar fire which injured his legs.
He died alongside Chris Hondros, a 41-year-old US photographer for Getty.
The photojournalist, who lived in New York, worked for magazine Vanity Fair and received plaudits in recent years for his work in Afghanistan.
He was nominated for an Oscar for the documentary, “Restrepo”, which followed a platoon of US soldiers deployed to a remote operating base in Afghanistan.
Hetherington won the World Press Photo of the Year award in 2007 for a picture of an exhausted US soldier on the frontline in Afghanistan.
