WASHINGTON ¨C A U.S. judge has ruled that Syrian President Bashar Assad¡¯s government is liable for at least $302.5 million in damages for its role in the 2012 death of renowned American journalist Marie Colvin while covering the Syrian civil war.
U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson said in a ruling made public on Wednesday that the Syrian government ¡°engaged in an act of extrajudicial killing of a United States national.¡±
Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik were killed in the besieged Syrian city of Homs while reporting on the Syrian conflict.
The lawsuit filed by Colvin¡¯s family in 2016 accused officials in Assad¡¯s government of deliberately targeting rockets against a makeshift broadcast studio where Colvin and other reporters were living and working.
Jackson wrote that ¡°a targeted attack on a media center hosting foreign journalists that resulted in two fatalities and multiple injuries ... is an unconscionable act.¡± The judge ruled that compensatory damages to be awarded in addition to the $300 million in punitive damages would be calculated at a later date.
A biographical film about Colvin, called ¡°A Private War¡± and starring British actress Rosamund Pike, was released last year, bringing fresh attention to her career.
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