American Reporter in Turkey Killed in Suspicious Car Accident

The veteran reporter was in fear of the Turkish Intelligence Agency after breaking stories about Turkey and ISIL.

(TEHRAN Press TV) - Serena Shim was killed in a suspicious car accident on Sunday as she was on a working mission in Turkey to cover the ongoing war in the strategic Syrian town of Kobani.

Shim, an American citizen of Lebanese origin, covered reports for Press TV in Lebanon, Iraq, and Ukraine. Shim was near the Turkey-Syria border.

She was going back to her hotel from a report scene in the city of Suruç, a rural district of Şanlıurfa Province of Turkey when their car collided with a heavy vehicle. The identity and whereabouts of the truck driver remain unknown.

Press TV news director Hamid Reza Emadi says the “suspicious death,” of the news channel’s correspondent in Turkey is a tragedy for “anyone who wants to get the truth.”

Emadi made the remarks in an interview with Press TV on Sunday following Serena Shim’s death across the border from Syria’s Kurdish city of Kobani, where the ISIL terrorists and Kurdish fighters are engaged in heavy battles.

“Serena told the stories,” Emadi said, referring to Turkey’s role in the crisis, including “how Ankara collaborated with those terrorists,” and “blocked Kurdish fighters from entering Kobani” to help tackle the ISIL.

Kobani and its surroundings have been under attack since mid-September, with the ISIL militants capturing dozens of nearby Kurdish villages.

On Friday, Serena Shim told Press TV that the Turkish intelligence agency had accused her of spying probably due to some of the stories she has covered about Turkey’s stance on the ISIL terrorists in Kobani and its surroundings, adding that she feared being arrested.

Shim said she was among the few journalists obtaining stories of militants infiltrating into Syria through the Turkish border, adding that she had received images from militants crossing the Turkish border into Syria in World Food Organization and other NGOs’ trucks.

Shim flatly rejected accusations against her, saying she was “surprised” at this accusation “because I have nothing to hide and I have never done anything aside my job.”

Emadi called the “car accident” version of Shim’s death an “infantile argument” by Turkey. “We are not going to buy that,” he noted.

“We believe that the Turkish government has to be held accountable before the international community. It has to find out exactly what happened.”

The news media director went on to say that Shim was an American national who died “under very suspicious circumstances” inside Turkey. “We are waiting to see whether the US government is reacting or asking Ankara for clarification.”

Serena Shim leaves behind two children. Shim will not return to her children in Lebanon just because she “criticized a certain country that is creating chaos in the region by supporting terrorists both inside Syria and Iraq,” Emadi said.

In 2012, Press TV lost another correspondent, Maya Nasser, who was shot in the neck and the chest by a foreign-backed sniper in the Syrian capital Damascus.

Emadi slammed the “so-called” human rights organizations for refusing to condemn killing of journalists like Nasser.

“Just because they reported the truth. They didn’t report what the US media wants them to report.”

Emadi decried news blackout on Press TV correspondents’ death “by those who control mass media” saying, “That’s how they’re sending a signal to independent journalists like Serena Shim.”