Tributes paid in London at opening of Freedom Forum

THE official opening in London yesterday of a European office of the Freedom Forum, a non political organisation founded to promote freedom of the press, was dominated by tributes to journalist Veronica Guerin.

Ms Guerin was scheduled to deliver an address today as part of a conference organised by the forum. The conference is called "Journalists Under Fire: media under seige", and Ms Guerin was to take part in a discussion entitled "Dying to Tell the Story: journalists at risk".

Mr Alan Byrne, who was news editor with the Sunday Tribune when Ms Guerin worked with that newspaper from 1993 to 1994, spoke to the opening ceremony about Ms Guerin and her work.

Among those present were the families and relatives of journalists killed in the course of their work. The keynote address was by Mr John Simpson of the BBC.

Earlier, Mr Byrne told The Irish Times of how he had spoken with Ms Guerin about her intention to name Dublin's drugs barons. I said: `Veronica you've got to be careful'. She said: `Someone's got to do it'."

Two weeks ago, Ms Guerin told him she was "having trouble again" and that a person had been driving up and down outside her house all night. "We have to believe that she believed they would never stoop so low as to kill her."

After she recovered from being shot in the leg, Ms Guerin had gone to see the man she believed had ordered that shooting.

Mr Byrne, who is from Dublin and is editor of the London based Racing Post, said Ms Guerin was a "very determined, very stubborn" journalist and "an amazing networker with amazing contacts".