Harry Burton (journalist)

Harry Burton (23 January 1968 - 19 November 2001) was an Australian journalist and cameraman who was killed by the Taliban on the highway to Kabul, Afghanastan. Three other journalists suffered the same fate.

Burton was working for the the Reuters agency at the time. He was a latecomer to journalism and quit his job three years earlier in Melbourne to get involved in the profession. He had worked in Indonesia earlier in 2001 covering the Free Aceh Movement and the conflict in East Timor, for Reuters. He was 33 years old when he was killed. He was buried in Hobart on 28 November 2001.

Biography

Burton was born in Brisbane and studied agricultural sciences at Melbourne University. He decided to go to Jakarta without any previous experience and try his hand at becoming a photo journalist. Prior to that he worked as a fashion buyer for Coles Myer. [Bowling, Mark " [http://www.abc.net.au/pm/stories/s421295.htm Correspondent discusses cameraman's death] ", Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 20 November 2001] His breakthrough came in his coverage of the final months of the Indonesian occupation of East Timor that August. He ran the Reuters television bureau in Dili after the former Portuguese colony voted for independence.Aglionby, John. " [http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2001/nov/22/guardianobituaries.johnaglionby Obituary: Harry Burton] ", Guardian Online, 22 November 22 2001]

He was one of 19 journalists taken hostage in the Fiji coup of 2000 by the leader of the coup, George Speight. After his release he was made a full time cameraman by Reuters in January 2000.

Death

Burton moved to Afghanastan to cover the ongoing conflict there. On November of that year he was riding in a Jeep from Jalalabad to Kabul, just a few days after the Taliban fell, when his convoy was stopped and passengers ordered to get out. He was killed with three other journalists, Julio Fuentes of the Spanish paper El Mundo, Azizullah Haidari of Reuters, and Maria Grazia Cutulli of Italy's Corriere della Sera. Their mutilated bodies were found on 19 November. [McCarthy, Rory. " [http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2001/nov/20/warinafghanistan2001.afghanistan Journalists Believed Dead After Ambush] ", Guardian Online, 20 November 20 2001]

A Kabul court sentenced three men to death for these murders in 2004 and 2005 respectively. Two brothers, Mahmood Zar Jan and Abdul Wahid, were sentenced in 2005 and another, Reza Khan, was sentenced to death on 20 November 2004. [" [http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/08/04/1091557929957.html Afghan Confesses Part in Death of Burton] ", Sydney Morning Herald, 5 August 2004]

A scholarship fund was set up in his name by the Jakarta Foreign Correspondents Club to support training for reporters from remote parts of Indonesia, particularly camera operators.

Family

Burton has four sisters and three brothers. His partner Joanne Collins is also a journalist. His father Harry (Sr) was a judge in the ADF photography award named in his honor. [Rodgers, Sgt. Troy. [http://www.defence.gov.au/news/adfphotocomp/2003/hbma.htm The Harry Burton Memorial Award] , Australian Department of Defense]

References