ITN now says there is "sufficient evidence" that a correspondent for ITV News, Terry Lloyd, has been killed in what the organisation says could be a friendly-fire incident outside the city of Basra in southern Iraq.

His cameraman Fred Nerac and translator Hussein Othman are still listed as missing, as initial reports also has Lloyd listed. Unfortunately ITN now believes Lloyd's body is in a Basra hospital still under Iraqi control. Lloyd and his crew were not "embedded" with Coalition forces, instead operating autonomously from the military - a principle that surviving cameraman Daniel Demoustier said Lloyd would wish to continue.

The Chief Executive of ITN, Stewart Purvis, said: "Terry was one of ITN's most experienced war correspondents. He knew Iraq well. He was the first reporter to alert the world to Saddam Hussein's attack on the town of Halabje in 1988 in which the Kurdish population was wiped out by a chemical attack.

"Terry was brave, he was determined and he was safety conscious. He was a lovely guy."

Speaking of the award-winning fifty year old journalist, ITV News editor David Mannion said: "Terry's record as an outstanding journalist speaks for itself. He was my oldest, dearest friend, but I am sustained that he died doing what he did best, at the peak of his powers and at a time of his life when he was personally and professionally the happiest I have seen him."