Forum for former BBC staff

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http://www.ex-bbc.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl >> Notices, obituaries and tributes >> John Williams http://www.ex-bbc.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?num=1128115324 Message started by Forum Admin on Sep 30^th, 2005, 9:23pm

Title: John Williams
Post by Forum Admin on Sep 30^th, 2005, 9:23pm

This is taken from Broadcast:

Documentary maker dies in Iraq
Paul Revoir
28 September 2005

Award-winning documentary maker John Williams has died in Northern Iraq, while filming a documentary about the victims of Saddam Hussein's gassing of Kurds.

Williams, 60, who was also a former editor of The Money Programme and one-time senior producer on Panorama and Nationwide, died from a heart attack at his hotel in Abril, northern Iraq on Thursday (22 September).

He was in Iraq on assignment for the RW Films production, which was being made for German broadcaster ZDF and US current affairs programme PBS Frontline.

The documentary was investigating one of the key charges in the trial of Saddam Hussein, namely the abduction of 8,000 Barzani clansmen back in 1983. During the height of the insurgency this summer Williams drove from north to south Iraq to help film the search for the Barzani mass graves and evidence linking Saddam to their deaths.

Williams was convinced that the international media had largely failed to provide a full and balanced picture of the country after the war in 2003, understating the immense suffering of Iraqis under Saddam Hussein's regime.

Film-maker Gwynne Roberts who was working with Williams in Arbil said, "John and I had worked together before in Iraq on other films, but the current situation made this by far the most scary. It was good to work with John who was always professional, cheerful and funny.

"He'll be much missed: everyone who met him out here loved him and we're all devastated by his sudden death. Our hearts go out to his family, Angela his wife and his children Alice and Jack."

During his career Williams won a Rory Peck Award for his film The Taking of Sanski Bridge, one of many Channel 4 Dispatches that he made and also won a Royal Television Society award for Watercolour Challenge.