By Abdussamad Yahya Sufi
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| Press TV reporter Serena Shim in October 2014. [Photo: Press TV] |
On October 19, 2014, Serena Shim, a 29-year-old American journalist working for Press TV, was killed in a car crash near the Turkey-Syria border, two days after she reported on air that Turkey's intelligence service had accused her of spying.
Shim, a Michigan-born Lebanese-American, was returning to her hotel in Suruç in Sanliurfa Province after covering the battle for Kobani when the car she was traveling in collided with a heavy truck. Her camerawoman, Judy Irish, who was driving, was injured. Shim died shortly afterward.
Two days earlier, on Oct. 17, Shim said in a live report that Turkey's National Intelligence Organization, known as MIT, had accused her of being a spy.
"I am very surprised at this accusation. I've never done anything aside from my job," she said. "Turkey has been labeled by Reporters Without Borders as the largest prison for journalists... so I am a bit frightened about what they might use against me."
Shim had joined Press TV in 2007 and reported from Lebanon, Iraq and Ukraine. At the time of her death she was reporting on the Islamic State offensive against Kobani and had filed stories alleging that militants were crossing into Syria from Turkey in trucks bearing humanitarian aid logos. She said she had footage to support the claim. Turkish officials denied the allegations.
Turkish authorities said the crash was a traffic accident. According to a gendarmerie report, Irish was at fault for driving at excessive speed and violating traffic rules. The driver of the concrete mixer truck, Sukru Salan, was questioned and released.
Press TV called the crash suspicious and said it came after Shim reported being threatened. Shim's family has also disputed the official account, citing conflicting statements they said they received about whether she died at the scene or later in a hospital in Urfa and why she and Irish were taken to different hospitals.
Eleven years on, no criminal investigation into her death has been made public in Turkey and U.S. authorities have not released findings of an independent inquiry.
Shim, the mother of two children, was buried in Bourj el-Barajneh, Lebanon, on Oct. 22, 2014.