"Restrepo" director killed in Libya

Ocimnet - MISRATA, Libya (Reuters) - Photojournalist Tim Hetherington, the co-director of Oscar-nominated war documentary "Restrepo," died in the besieged Libyan town of Misrata on Wednesday, doctors said.

Getty photographer Chris Hondros was in critical condition in intensive care, doctors at the hospital where he was being treated said. He had suffered brain injuries.

The photographers were among a group caught by mortar fire on Tripoli Street, the main thoroughfare leading into the center of Misrata, the only major rebel-held town in western Libya and besieged by Muammar Gaddafi's forces for more than seven weeks.

"It was quiet and we were trying to get away and then a mortar landed and we heard explosions," Spanish photographer Guillermo Cervera said.

Hetherington, also a still photographer who won the 2007 World Press Photo of the Year award, co-directed with Sebastian Junger the 2010 Afghan war documentary "Restrepo," which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary.

Hondros is an award winning photographer who covered major conflicts including Kosovo, Angola, Sierra Leone, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Kashmir, the West Bank, Iraq and Liberia, according to his website.

Hondros received multiple awards including the 2005 Robert Capa gold medal. His work in Liberia earned him a Pulitzer Prize nomination. (Reporting by Michael Georgy and Daniel Trotta in New York, editing by Myra MacDonald)

Story & Photos Copyright 2011 Reuters

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