Judge awards USD 300M to family of journalist killed in Syria

A Washington judge has hit the Syrian government with a USD 302 million judgment over the 2012 death of journalist Marie Colvin, a longtime foreign correspondent for The Sunday Times.

In a verdict unsealed late Wednesday night, US District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson concluded the Syrian military had deliberately targeted the makeshift media center in the city of Homs where Colvin and other journalists were working.

Sustained artillery barrages against the apartment building housing the media center killed Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik on February 22, 2012.

Colvin, who had covered conflicts around the world for the British newspaper, wore a signature black patch over her left eye after being blinded by a grenade in Sri Lanka in 2001.

The 2018 film "A Private War" was based on her life.

Lawyers for Colvin's family argued that her death was no accident. They hope to recover the USD 302 million verdict by targeting frozen Syrian government assets overseas. The Syrian government has never responded to the suit.

"The challenge now is going to be enforcing the judgment," said Scott Gilmore, lead counsel for the Colvin family.

"The precedents show that it is possible to recover assets."
"The overwhelming weight of the evidence concluded that this was essentially an assassination."
However, that immunity is lifted for alleged crimes against American citizens by governments classified as a "state sponsor of terrorism."
"They prioritised taking out the journalists."