MARTIN ADLER – A PROPER, PROPER FREELANCER

Killed in Mogadishu on 23 June 2006

When he won the Rory Peck Award for Hard News in 2004, one of the judges called Martin Adler “a proper, proper freelancer” saying “he got behind the story, inside the story, really brought out the characters and gave us something different.”

Martin had regularly entered The Rory Peck Awards since they began in 1995, sending footage and stories that shed light on some of the most dangerous and abusive situations in the world. While working with Insight News he sent in stories about the plight of Muslim Kashmiris living in a region torn apart by war and human rights abuses; black magic in Brazzaville, Congo; the reality of Indonesia’s social and economic breakdown; the kidnapping of Chinese women for sale as wives to lonely men. Working with Channel 4 News Independents Fund he sent in stories about Portuguese drug smuggling, fighting in Monrovia, life after the Tsunami in Aceh. In 2004 he won the Rory Peck Award for Hard News for his shocking, observational account of the US army’s modus operandi in Iraq in late November 2003. “On Patrol With Charlie Company – Ivy Blizzard” included footage of US soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners, months before the Abu Ghraib story broke. Vin Ray, the Chairman of the judging panel said; “This is the best embedded piece I have seen from Iraq. He shot it, voiced it, edited it: it genuinely was his creation. It spoke volumes about the situation in Iraq. Incredibly prescient."

Martin’s murder in Somalia is a terrible tragedy. He was killed doing what he had always done, filming the truth. This is an awful loss to the freelance community, to all his colleagues and friends - but most of all to his wife, children and his whole family. They are very much in our thoughts.

As another judge commented “There are very few people out there doing this – and Martin is one of them”.

Martin Adler was a true, great freelancer.

Martin Adler with the 2004 Rory Peck Awards finalists

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Biography

Martin Adler was born in Stockholm of Anglo-Swedish parents. He had a BA in Social Anthropology from SOAS, London University. As a freelance cameraman of long experience, Martin worked in over two dozen war zones, including El Salvador, Peru, Rwanda, Congo, Angola, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Chechnya, Abchazia, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Kashmir, Burundi, Somalia, Sudan, Eritrea, Iraq.

In 2001, he won the Amnesty International Media Award 2001 (news category) for the story on kidnapping and sale of women in China. At the New York TV Festival in 2001, he was awarded the Silver Prize for Investigative Journalism.

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In his own words: Martin Adler about filming “On Patrol with Charlie Company – Ivy Blizzard”

“The men I was with were all professional soldiers. Most of them had been in the country since April. Their captain, the cigar-smoking Karl Pfuetze had become to all intents and purposes the local governor.

Captain Pfuetze was a tough, hands-on, no bullshit sort of commander, a military man through and through, who would shoot first and ask questions afterwards. He was popular with the men and renowned for acts of bravado such as picking up a live booby trap bomb on Highway One and carrying it to the side of the road to be detonated. His only problem - according to one of his bodyguards - was that he thought he was John Wayne.

These days you travel along Highway One at your own risk. Being an unaccompanied and unarmed Westerner on this section of the road is a very dangerous business indeed. There is the constant threat posed by the notorious IED , improvised explosive devices, increasingly sophisticated remote-control bombs, now often attached to mobile phones. The operator, who could be as far away as Baghdad, just needs to call the number in order to detonate the bomb.

The strategy I adopted when commuting between Baghdad and Charlie Company was to go native. A red-and-white checkered keffiyeh head-dress, and the sort of khaki combat jacket worn by locals was the type of apparel not too likely to attract much attention here, at least not from the resistance. I would travel in a black Daewoo Prince without numberplates, the sort of vehicle a village-level sheik would feel at home in. Back in Baghdad you were constantly aware of being a potential target, and all too visible. So, despite the obvious dangers, posing as a local sheik along Highway One was almost a satisfying experience, rather like snapping ones fingers and disappearing."

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