Boston Globe reporter killed in Iraq

BOSTON, May 9 (UPI) -- Veteran Boston Globe reporter Elizabeth Neuffer, 46, was killed in an auto accident in Iraq, the Globe confirmed Friday.

The award-winning reporter was a passenger in a car that struck a guardrail Friday morning near the town of Samarra, about halfway between Tikrit and Baghdad, the Globe said.

Neuffer, covering the aftermath of the Iraq war, was returning to Baghdad from an overnight trip to Tikrit where she was reporting on efforts to rid Iraq of the influence of the Baath Party, the Globe said in a statement.

Also killed in the crash was Neuffer's translator, Waleed Khalifa Hassan Al-Dulami. The driver, Saad Al-Azarini, survived.

The Globe statement said Neuffer was known as a savvy, determined and fearless reporter who was relentless in her pursuit of a story.

"All of us in the Globe's newsroom are devastated by the news of Elizabeth's death," said Globe editor Martin Baron. "She was brilliant and courageous."

Baron said Neuffer wanted to go wherever there was news in the world.

"She made a specialty of covering war crimes, human rights and the struggles of fractured nations," Baron said.

"Her energy seemed limitless, and her reports were eloquent with insight.

"Our hearts go out to Elizabeth's family and her longtime partner, Peter Canellos," the Globe's bureau chief in Washington, Baron said.

"We have lost an exceptional journalist, a treasured colleague and a wonderful friend," he said.

Globe publisher Richard Gilman said Neuffer "was among that cadre of reporters who are at their best when the danger is greatest.

"We were fortunate to have Elizabeth, and it is devastating to all of us that she is gone," Gilman said.

Neuffer began her career with the Globe in 1988, working as a federal courts reporter, covering the Gulf War in 1991, and reporting on the fall of the Soviet Union and the resignation of Mikhail Gorbachev.

She also worked in the Globe's Washington bureau and served in Berlin as the Globe's European correspondent.

She most recently worked as the Globe's United Nations correspondent and roving foreign correspondent, and also reported from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and Iraq.

Neuffer won the SAIS-Novartis Prize for Excellence in International Journalism in 1997 for a 10-part series on war crimes in Bosnia and Rwanda.

She was a 1998 winner of the Courage in Journalism Award granted by the International Women's Media Foundation, which noted she had been menaced by gun-toting rebels, subjected to death threats, abducted by soldiers, robbed and threatened with rape.

As she explained her philosophy about truth, Neuffer said, "The truth may be hazardous to those who tell it, but truth is not dangerous, disinformation is."

Neuffer also wrote a book about war crimes and post-war justice, "The Keys to My Neighbor's House," published by Picador in 2001.

A graduate of Cornell University, Neuffer had also worked as a freelancer for The New York Times and Time magazine, and before that was a deputy press secretary to Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, D-Conn.