THE WESTERN JOURNAL - Jack Davis - DEC 12, 2022
Khalid al-Misslam, a Qatari photojournalist working for Al Kass TV, has died according to the Daily Mail.
A second journalist covering soccer’s World Cup in Qatar died Saturday, with no clear explanation for his death having yet emerged.
Khalid al-Misslam, a Qatari photojournalist working for Al Kass TV, has died according to the Daily Mail.
Gulf Times, a Qatar-based news outlet, issued a tweet about his death saying the photojournalist passed away ”recently.” As of Monday, no further information had been released about his death.
The timing of the second death of a journalist, coming on the heels of Friday’s passing of reporter Grant Wahl, raised eyebrows, with one soccer training facility in the U.S. tweeting, “What is going on?”
Wahl’s brother, Eric, issued comments after his brother’s death suggesting his brother could have been murdered, noting the reporter’s antipathy to the Qatari government, according to the New York Post.
Eric Wahl issued more comments about his brother on Twitter.
On the day before he died, Grant Wahl said he had bronchitis, according to the Post.
“My body I think told me, even after the U.S. went out, ‘dude, you are not sleeping enough.’ It rebelled on me. So I’ve had a case of bronchitis this week. I’ve been to the medical clinic at the media center twice now, including today,” he said on his podcast.
“I’m feeling better today I basically canceled everything on this Thursday that I had and napped. And I’m doing slightly better. I think you can probably tell in my voice that I’m not 100 percent,” he said.
Also on Saturday, a World Cup security guard fell from what has been described as a “significant height” after Friday night’s quarter-final game between Argentina and the Netherlands, according to the Guardian.
The guard is reported by the Guardian to be a migrant worker and was in stable but critical condition.
A Filipino national hired to fix lights in a car park died earlier in the tournament after a fall.
After the worker’s death, Nasser al-Khater, the head of Qatar’s World Cup operations, said, “death is a natural part of life — whether it’s at work, whether it’s in your sleep.”