Julio Fuentes

MADRID, Spain (AP) – Julio Fuentes, the Spanish journalist killed in Afghanistan, was a war correspondent who reported from Latin America, Europe, Asia, and Africa.

Fuentes, who was slain Monday at age 42, had worked since 1989 for the Madrid daily El Mundo.

"I signed him up in an ice cream parlor," recalled Fernando Mujica, the international editor at El Mundo. "He said yes, but with one condition: to do stories, action reporting, vital journalism."

Fuentes started his career at age 21, covering civil wars in El Salvador and Nicaragua for the Madrid daily Cambio 16. He later covered the 1991 Gulf War, the war in Chechnya and spent three years in Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital.

His experiences in Sarajevo also produced a novel, "Sarajevo, Final Judgment."

Pedro J. Ramirez, El Mundo's editor in chief, praised Fuentes and other journalists.

"I think that if our world is a better world through globalization, through everyone knowing about injustices, about the terrible situations that can exist anywhere on Earth, it is thanks to journalists, to those special correspondents who are part of what in slang language is called the tribe, and Julio is one of its leading representatives," Ramirez told Spanish National Radio.

Fuentes is survived by his wife, Monica Prieto, a journalist on the El Mundo international desk. Funeral arrangements were incomplete.


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