Journalist Shot Dead In Front Of Her Six-Year-Old Son ‘By Member Of Royal Family’

A young mother has been shot and killed as her six-year-old son watched from inside her car.

Eman Salehi, 28, worked for Bahrain’s state-run television broadcaster as a sports journalist and was killed on December 23, The Evening Standard reports.

Ms Salehi, a Shiite muslim, had stopped her car in the Bahraini city of Riffa, where a man shot her in the head before immediately turning himself into the police.

Activists living outside of the country have alleged a member of Bahrain’s Sunni royal family who’s serving in the military pulled the trigger.

For decades the Bahrain royal family has struggled with the split between themselves and the Shiite majority and the country’s monarchy has been repeatedly accused of human rights abuses.

Said Yousif Almuhafdah of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights said: 

If you say it involves the military, it involves the king, no one wants to mention that.

Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa

Meanwhile the state-run Bahrain News Agency has identified the shooter as a ’34-year-old Bahraini man’ who has been handed to the ‘relevant judicial authorities’.

The Gulf Daily News, a pro-government English-language newspaper, agreed with the Bahrain News Agency adding that the killer was an officer in the Bahraini Defense Force.

Despite this activists abroad claim to have identified the shooter, using local contacts on the ground, as being a member of the Al Khalifa family.

PA Images

Brigadier General Yussef Rashid Flaifel, the head of the country’s military courts, has explained that the military are investigating the crime and that the man accused is in custody.

Bahrain’s state television channel has refused to name the accused as to do so would break the law.

Concerned activists are worried that the army will conduct a military tribunal behind closed doors which will bury any investigation into Ms Salehi’s death.

Tom Percival

More of a concept than a journalist, Tom Percival was forged in the bowels of Salford University from which he emerged grasping a Masters in journalism.

Since then his rise has been described by himself as ‘meteoric’ rising to the esteemed rank of Social Editor at UNILAD as well as working at the BBC, Manchester Evening News, and ITV.

He credits his success to three core techniques, name repetition, personality mirroring, and never breaking off a handshake.