Ahmed Samir Assem was one of the 51 people killed on Monday when Egyptian soldiers began firing on a crowd gathered outside a Republican Guard building. But unlike the other victims, many of whom were supporters of deposed President Mohamed Morsi, Assem was a photographer for Egypt's Al-Horia Wa Al-Adala newspaper. Now there are reports he captured the last moments of his life while doing his job.
Exactly what happened to initiate Monday's slaughter is a matter of contention. Morsi supporters say the military opened fire on peaceful protesters, while the military says demonstrators were storming its building. Regardless, the Muslim Brotherhood has begun using this video as evidence that snipers on the roof were firing on innocents.
Some of Assem's colleagues confirmed his death to the Daily Telegraph:
"At around 6am, a man came into the media centre with a camera covered in blood and told us that one of our colleagues had been injured," said Ahmed Abu Zeid, the culture editor of Mr Assem’s newspaper, who was working from a facility set up next to the Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque, about a mile away.
"Around an hour later, I received news that Ahmed had been shot by a sniper in the forehead while filming or taking pictures on top of the buildings around the incident."
The Telegraph says it couldn't obtain a physical copy of Assem's video for itself, calling into question the above clip's provenance. But the videographer's brother said the 20 minutes of footage Assem obtained before his death yesterday did indeed end like the clip above, with "a soldier shooting demonstrators from a roof. The soldier then turned his gun towards Mr Assem and the film suddenly went dead."
Assem was 26.