(WASHINGTON) — Seven years after correspondent Marie Colvin was killed while covering the Syrian revolution, a Washington court has found the Syrian government liable and awarded more than $300 million in damages.
U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson unsealed her verdict late Wednesday night. Berman concluded the Syrian military had worked to locate and then deliberately target the makeshift media center in the city of Homs where Colvin and other journalists were working.
A longtime foreign correspondent for The Sunday Times, Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik were killed on Feb. 22, 2012, by sustained artillery barrages against the apartment building housing the media center.
Lawyers for Colvin’s family argued that her death was essentially an assassination. They hope to recover the $302 million settlement by targeting frozen Syrian government assets overseas.
