PARIS, June 1: Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF) has called on French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin and British Defence Minister Geoff Hoon to undertake a joint investigation into the disappearance in southern Iraq on March 22 of French cameraman Fred Nerac and Lebanese interpreter Hussein Osman, both of the British Independent Television News (ITN).

“RSF welcomes the decision, even though it was belated, by the British defence ministry to open a criminal enquiry into their disappearance,” said the organisation’s secretary-general, Robert Menard in a letter to the two ministers. “Nerac is not only French but a citizen of the European Union.