Aziz Ullah Haidari

Azizullah Haidari, 2001.

Aziz Ullah Haidari (20 August 1968 in Kabul – 19 November 2001 in Nangarhar Province[1]) was a Reuter's correspondent and photo-journalist in Pakistan, killed among three foreign journalists by Taliban on 19 November 2001. He was kidnapped and murdered by Taliban on the highway of Sarobi area between Jalalabad and Kabul in Afghanistan.

Aziz Ullah Haidari, 33-year-old when he was killed by Taliban in Afghanistan.He was an intelligent and experienced journalist,started his job ten years earlier with Reuters in Islamabad before killing in 2001.

Biography

Aziz Ullah Haidari was born on 20 August 1968 in Kabul, Afghanistan. His father, Hajji Qurban Haidari, owned a hotel in Afghanistan. Aziz had four brothers and two sisters. During the Soviet invasion, at the age of twelve, he fled with his parents to Pakistan while travel they were faced many troubles and difficulties.They were looted by robbers during the journey.After Immigration they settled in Hayatabad area of Peshawar city in Khyber Pakhtunkhawa.

In Peshawar he continued his study and took admission in private English medium school. His elder brother Jalil Haidari who was a boxer and world championed, was arrested, torture and killed by Pakistani security forces in Peshawar Jail.

Aziz finished his secondary education and then entered to Preston University in Peshawar. After completing his studies he moved to Islamabad with his parents. He fell in love with a Pakistani girl, Saadia Sehar, a video-journalist[2][3] and school teacher. He married her on 28 January 1996 in Islamabad.

Work

Aziz Ullah Haidari started his career as an Assistant Director of Foreign Relation of Mehracollah reconstruction services (NGO) for Afghanistan in 1990. He started teaching English Language in a private English medium school National Academy in 1991. He started work as journalist in 1987 with Pashto and Persian media. In 1990 he joined Reuters news agency as translator and monitoring news from Afghanistan. He was promoted as correspondent in Reuters in 1992. He was also a photo journalist and did many exclusive works for Reuters. Julio Fuentes of Spain's El Mundo; Harry Burton,[4] an Australian television cameraman and Maria Grazia Cutuli, a reporter with Italy's Corriere della Sera, were all killed when gunmen ambushed the convoy they were traveling in between Jalalabad and Kabul on 19 November 2001.[1]

Family

He has one daughter Aleena Haidari and son Muhammad Ammad Haidari. He was killed by bandits in Afghanistan on 19 November 2001. His wife Saadia Sehar Haidari lived in Pakistan. She started work as journalist and cameraperson.

Death

Aziz Ullah Haidari moved to Afghanistan from Pakistan to cover the ongoing conflict there, working for Reuters at the time. On November of that year he was riding in a car from Jalalabad to Kabul, the cars were yellow and white. Just a few days after the Taliban fell, his convoy was stopped and passengers ordered to get out by a steep valley of barren hills leading up into the highlands that surround Kabul. He was killed with three other journalists, Julio Fuentes of the Spanish paper El Mundo, Harry Burton of Reuters, and Maria Grazia Cutulli of Italy's Corriere della Sera. Their mutilated bodies were found on 20 November 2001. Aziz Ullah Haidari was buried in H-8 Grave yard Islamabad on 22 November 2001.[3]

Murder trial

A Kabul court sentenced three men to death for the murders in 2004 and 2005 respectively. Two brothers, Mahmood Zar Jan and Abdul Wahid, were sentenced in 2005 and Mahmood Zar Jan, the suspected head of the gang that killed four journalists in November 2001. He was arrested together with four accomplices on the evening of the 4 June after a shootout with ploice in which he sustained gunshot injuries. The arrest took place in Sorbi (50 km east of Kabul) not far from where the journalist Aziz Ullah Haidari, Maria Grazia Cutuli, Harry Burton and Julio Fuentes were murdered four years ago. He was transferred to Kabul. Zar Jan is alleged to have been the main person to give the order for the journalists to be slain.

Reza Khan,[5] a member of the gang, was convicted of participating in the murders and sentenced to death on 20 November 2004.[6]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Committee to Protect Journalists. Journalists Killed - Afghanistan: Azizullah Haidari, Reuters.
  2. ↑ Pakistan’s first female video journalist named for Sadiq Press Freedom Award
  3. 1 2 La ONU confirma que los asesinos de los periodistas son talibanes. Diario ABC, 22 November 2001.
  4. ↑ Journalists' bodies taken to Pakistan. BBC, 21 November 2001.
  5. ↑ Death penalty for Afghan killer. BBC, 20 November 2004
  6. ↑ "Afghan Confesses Part in Death of Azizullah Haidari", Sydney Morning Herald, 5 August 2004
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