CNN 'refused to air US war crime scene'

A former CNN war correspondent says the news network censored footage of the scene of the brutal killing of a young Iraqi boy by US forces.

War correspondent Michael Ware, who worked for CNN from 2006 until April 2010, has been struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder after witnessing the violent act by US soldiers.

Ware told Radio Australia about the incident he allegedly witnessed and filmed in 2007 when working for US news giant CNN, adding further that the network decided the footage was too graphic to go on air.

He said a teenager in a remote Iraqi village run by al-Qaeda was carrying a weapon to protect himself.

"[The boy] approached the house we were in and the [US] soldiers who were watching our backs, one of them put a bullet right in the back of his head. Unfortunately it didn't kill him," he was quoted as saying.

"We all spent the next 20 minutes listening to his tortured breath as he died," he recounted.

Earlier in 2006, CNN became the target of severe criticism from Iraq war proponents after it ran a report by Ware showing insurgent snipers targeting US troops in Iraq.

~ Press TV ~