Mystery of Reporter Killed in Basra Deepens

By: E&P Staff Steve Vincent, a New Yorker and a freelance reporter, remains the only American journalist slain in Iraq since the fall of Baghdad more than two years ago. It happened on Aug. 2, but more than two months later, no one has been caught or charged with his murder.

Just before his death, after being kidnapped in Basra, he had written an Op-Ed for The New York Times. That newspaper re-visited his killing today, revealing or speculating on several fascinating angles, including the role that his very close relationship with his Iraqi interpreter may have played in the mystery.

Vincent's death was followed on Sept. 19 by the slaying of Fakher Haider, 38, an Iraqi journalist working for the Times, with the circumstances similar and his killers also still at large. The paper's Kirk Semple wrote today, "Radical Shiite militias, who have infiltrated the government and police force in Basra, are widely suspected of committing the crimes, though it is not known whether the killings are linked in any way."

Vincent and his Iraqi interpreter, Nooriya Taiz, were grabbed off the street by several armed men and thrown into a government pickup truck in Basra, and found several hours later, riddled with bullets. Taiz survived.

From the beginning, speculation about a motive for Vincent's killing focused mainly on his reporting and that July 31 Op-Ed, which revealed his increasing concerns about the role of radical Shiites and the fundamentalist crackdown in that city since the January elections. But his relationship with Taiz may have also played a big part.

Semple, in a frank account, revealed today that the relationship between Vincent and Taiz "developed well beyond a business arrangement and a shared indignation about the spread of hard-line Shiite control. They clearly adored each other." Among those Semple cited for this: Vincent's wife of 13 years, Lisa Ramaci. Many people who met the writer and the interpreter in Basra were told by them that they intended to marry.

But Ramaci claims that Vincent felt Taiz's life was in danger and he would marry her as the only way to get her out of the country. "I may sound like the self-deluded, cuckolded wife," Ramaci told the Times, "but believe me, as sure as God made Cleveland, he would've come home to me."

Then Semple comments: "People who knew Mr. Vincent in Basra said there was no evidence he and Ms. Taiz were having a sexual relationship. But even the appearance of one would be a sin in the eyes of some conservative Muslims." Efforts by the Times to interview Taiz were unsuccessful.

According to Ramaci, the F.B.I. had reports that witnesses had heard the abductors calling Taiz "a whore and pig for consorting with Americans" and telling her "she deserved to die."

Lending more credence to the Taiz role in his death, the Times reports that Vincent's print articles, and his writings on his blog, received very little notice in Basra.

But Semple adds: "Still, in the climate of mistrust and violence that has overwhelmed Iraq, rumor and suspicion is enough to lead to murder."