James Miller

James Henry Dominic Miller (18 December 1968 – 2 May 2003) was a Welsh cameraman, producer, and director, and recipient of numerous awards, including five Emmy Awards.

He was killed by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) gunfire while filming a documentary in the Gaza Strip.

Miller started his working life as a freelance cameraman, and in 1995 joined the Frontline News collective as cameraman, producer, and director.

He reported from the civil war in Algeria and from most of the world's major trouble spots from 1995 onwards, working for CNN, and for all the leading news broadcasters in Britain.

In 1997, he married Sophy Warren-Knott, with whom he had a son, Alexander, and a daughter, Charlotte.

In 1999 he made his first film for Hardcash Productions, Prime Suspects, about a massacre in Kosovo for Channel 4's Dispatches programme.

This film won the Royal Television Society (RTS) award for International Current Affairs in 1999.

Almost every film he made for Hardcash won major awards.

Prime Suspects was followed by Dying for the President about the Second Chechen War and Children of the Secret State about Korea, both also for Dispatches.

Miller then formed a professional association with television reporter Saira Shah, to make Beneath the Veil, about the life of women in Taliban-run Afghanistan.

This film, shown on Dispatches and CNN, repeated the success of Prime Suspects by again winning the RTS International Current Affairs award.

It also won an Emmy Award, a BAFTA, and the RTS "Programme of the Year" award.

In addition, Miller won the RTS craft award for his outstanding photography.

Miller worked regularly with Saira Shah for several years, and they formed a business partnership to operate an independent production company called Frostbite Productions in 2001.

Miller and Shah's second film, Unholy War, shot at the height of the Afghanistan war in 2001, won Miller his first Emmy as director and (together with Beneath the Veil) also the prestigious Peabody award.

Miller and Shah almost died of sub-zero temperatures while crossing the Hindu Kush during the making of this film.

Frostbite Films was the name of the independent film production company set up by Miller and Shah in 2001 after this experience.

Miller and Shah were working on a documentary for the American cable network HBO at the time of his death.

The resulting film, Death in Gaza, was released in 2004, and won three Emmys and one BAFTA TV award in 2005.

Miller received posthumously the Rory Peck Award for Features in 2004 for Death in Gaza, having been a finalist on three previous occasions.

After Miller's death, his friend Fergal Keane wrote: "James Miller was one of the finest journalistic talents I have ever known. Had he lived he would undoubtedly have come to be recognised as one of the greatest documentary makers of his generation. As it is he leaves a journalistic legacy of immense worth."

The documentary which Miller was making on the day of his death (Death in Gaza, released by HBO in 2004) depicts Miller and his colleagues leaving the home of a Palestinian family in the Rafah refugee camp after dark, carrying a white flag, towards two IDF armored personnel carriers manned by nine soldiers of the Desert Reconnaissance Battalion, a unit of Bedouin Arab-Israeli soldiers.

They had walked about 20 metres from the veranda when the first shot rang out.

For 13 seconds, there was silence broken only by Shah's cry: "We are British journalists."

Then came the second shot, which killed Miller.

He was shot in the front of his neck.

The soldier who shot him was identified as First Lieutenant Hib al-Heib.

According to a forensic expert, the fatal shot was fired from less than 200 metres away.

Immediately after the shooting, the IDF said that Miller had been shot in the back during crossfire.

It later retracted the assertion that he had been shot in the back.

The Israeli Military Police investigation into Miller's death closed on 9 March 2005 with an announcement that the soldier suspected of firing the shot would not be indicted as they could not establish that his shot was responsible, though he would be disciplined for violating the rules of engagement and for changing his account of the incident.

On 6 April 2006, the inquest jury at St Pancras Coroner's Court in London returned a verdict of unlawful killing, finding that Miller had been "murdered."

Forensic experts from London Metropolitan Police concluded that the bullets were consistent with those used by the IDF.

After meetings with the Miller family, the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, sent a formal request to his Israeli counterpart in June 2007 for prosecution proceedings to be enacted within six weeks against the soldier responsible for firing the shot.

The requests were ignored by the Israeli government and prosecution proceedings have never been held.

James Miller was born in Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire, Wales the younger son of Geoffrey Miller, an army officer who later rose to the rank of colonel, and his wife, Eileen, a headmistress.

He grew up in the West Country, but from ages six to eight lived in the Outer Hebrides, where his father was posted.

Raised as a Roman Catholic, he maintained that faith for the whole of his life.

He was educated at Downside and later at the London College of Printing, where within a few weeks his tutors promoted him to the postgraduate course in photo-journalism.

He worked as a photographer before moving to television.