NRT TV Owner Wounded in Drive-By Shooting in Sulaimani

SULAIMANI, Kurdistan Region – Gunmen on Saturday attacked Shaswar Abdulwahid in a drive-by shooting in Sulaimani, wounding the prominent businessman who had received death threats and whose NRT Television had been attacked twice in the past.

“Mr Abdulwahid was fired upon from inside a black BMW car that had probably more than three people in it,” NRT TV director Twana Osman told Rudaw. “One bullet hit his thigh and he was rushed to the hospital in a taxi.”

The Nalia Company has several business interests in Sulaimani, including NRT TV and Chavi Land amusement park.

“NRT was attacked and burnt, I am threatened and now I am shot at only because of my TV station,” Abdulwahid told NRT in hospital. “But my message to those who attacked me is that, as long as I am alive, I will neither shut down NRT nor will I retreat.”

“It is too soon to speak of the reason for this attack and Mr Abdulwahid doesn’t have any personal issues with anyone,” Osman said. “If there are any issues, then they are related to the projects of Nalia Company.”

Osman said that Abdulwahid had received death threats last year due to NRT’s coverage of some events in Kurdistan. “We do not suspect any specific person or political group,” said Osman.

Sarkawt Ahmed, the Sulaimani police spokesman, said that Abdulwahid will be questioned once he has received proper treatment.

The attack on Abdulwahid was condemned by journalists and intellectuals across the Kurdistan Region.

“This attack doesn’t have anything to do with his business interests,” said Kamal Rauf, editor-in- chief of Shar Magazine. “It is about his media company and we as journalists see this attack as an attack on freedom of speech,” he said.

Qadir Hamajan, a member of the political bureau of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) – the party in charge of the city’s security – condemned the attack in statement. He said that security forces have been ordered to find and arrest the culprits.

The NRT bureau in Sulaimani has been attacked twice in the past. In 2011, before the station was due to start its first broadcast, a group of armed men stormed its offices in the middle of the night, setting ablaze and destroying millions of dollars of equipment and property.