S. Sudan faults slain American reporter

JUBA, South Sudan — The American journalist fatally shot in South Sudan over the weekend had entered the country illegally with rebels, the army said Tuesday.

There was no indication that Christopher Allen, 26, was a journalist, said army spokesman Lul Ruai Koang, who warned that journalists will not be protected if they traveled with rebels into the East African country’s civil war.

“Anybody who comes attacking us with hostile forces will meet his fate,” Koang said.

Allen, a freelance journalist, was killed Saturday in fighting between government and rebel forces near the Ugandan border. His body was handed over by South Sudan’s army to the U.S. Embassy on Tuesday.

Allen was shot in the head with a “large bullet,” said the army’s chief medical officer, Dr. Peter Ajak Bullen, but he couldn’t confirm that the American was killed at close range. It is not clear who shot Allen.

South Sudan’s rebels have given a different account of Allen’s death. Government troops “targeted” Allen when they saw him taking photos during the fighting, said opposition spokesman William Gatjiath Deng. The opposition said Allen was wearing a large vest with the word “Press.”

The opposition’s deputy spokesman, Col. Lam Paul Gabriel, has said Allen and two other journalists were embedded with the rebels on a two-week mission after arriving from Uganda’s capital, Kampala.

South Sudan’s civil war is well into its fourth year, with tens of thousands of people killed. The fighting, often along ethnic lines, defies peace deals and unilateral cease-fires.

AP/MARIAH QUESADA U.S. Consul Denise Knapp and South Sudanese officials hold a news conference Tuesday at a mortuary in Juba, South Sudan, after the body of Christopher Allen was handed over to the U.S. Embassy.