Issue:
November 2025
Long-hidden footage sheds new light on the 2007 killing of Japanese video journalist Kenji Nagai
What happens when a photojournalist records his own murder on camera?
Kenji Nagai did exactly that on September 27, 2007, while covering pro-democracy demonstrations in Yangon, Myanmar.
A commanding officer of Myanmar’s ruling junta gave a command for troops to open fire on the civilian crowd: students, Buddhist monks, shopkeepers, reporters. Soldiers raised assault rifles - the type of NATO standard European-made G3 assault weapons - and fired metal combat rounds into the crowd.
Another photographer on a bridge photographed Kenji, a video reporter with Asia Press Front (APF) in Tokyo, falling to the ground, still holding his Sony video camera, as a Myanmar soldier, rifle clutched at waist level, rushed forward, with the crowd in front of him in full panic.
Kenji tried to stand up again, but was unable, the large caliber bullet had already burst through his chest and out via his back.
The photo, by Reuters journalist Adrees Latif, of Kenji’s final moments, with one arm in the air attempting to steady the video camera, was awarded the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography. The New York Times and the international edition of the Guardian published the photo on their front pages. Reporters Without Borders’ Washington D.C. director Lucie Morillon stated that Kenji had been “left to die in the street” without the protection of his journalistic profession.
What happened after that?
His body was brought back to Japan. His paper notebook was also returned, but with pages missing. The Japanese government, unwilling to risk export contracts with the Myanmar junta, turned its back on its own citizen. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with all of its staff and budget and resources, was only able to obtain a fax that glossed over Kenji’s murder. The Myanmar junta released a statement implying that he had simply and intransitively “lost his life” as if it were a state of mind or a misplaced item.
And what of Kenji’s camera, and the video cassette inside? The junta seized it, and waited for the case to go cold. For more than 15 years.
Then in 2023, the wall of silence was breached. Anonymous sources sent a message through the independent press group Democratic Voice of Burma: “We have the camera,” they said. “And the video cassette inside. We’re relaying it to a safe source in Thailand.”
The head of Kenji’s agency APF called a press conference with good – and bad – news. The tape showed the footage of that day in 2007, but the 19 or so seconds of footage before and after the gunshots had been blacked out. At a press conference on September 24 this year, forensic analysis was released, with APF’s Tsutomu Harigaya announcing that technicians at the Japan Acoustic Laboratory had determined that the tape had likely been tampered with after the date of filming, and some footage blacked out by recording several minutes in silence with the lens covered. APF chief Toru Yamaji is now making a new appeal, urging any technicians with additional skills in sound and image restoration to come forward to help restore the original data on the tape.
Among the moments that are currently viewable is one in which Kenji says, “The army has just arrived, and they are heavily armed.” as well as what may have been his final words: “For now, let’s go back.”
Will the rediscovered tape, and perhaps any additional tape that might be found, bring a breakthrough in prosecuting Kenji’s murder? Even without the restored images, we have the primary evidence. The Pulitzer-winning photo contains the proverbial smoking gun. Several identifying factors have always been visible on the image, and on other images recorded from various angles with both still photography and video footage:
- The soldier looming over Kenji has the emblem of his unit on the sleeve, later identified as the 66 Light Infantry Division, brought in from the countryside region of Bagu (Pegu) 100km to Yangon to crush the demonstrations.
- The soldier’s face is clearly visible.
- The weapon, a Belgian-produced G3 assault rifle or duplicate thereof, is clearly visible in the soldier’s hands. A standard magazine is loaded in the rifle, indicating that the soldiers had orders to prepare their weapons for live fire.
- The soldier is distinguishable from other soldiers by his footwear – a pair of simple sandals rather than standard combat boots. Since 2007, this author has branded him “the sandal soldier”.
- The crowd visible in the video is in obvious panic, climbing over each other, their shoes and sandals strewn behind them, indicating a sudden crowd surge from a sudden fear-inducing impulse: a gunshot.
- A photograph shows the soldier just one pace away from Kenji, who has a visible round bloodstain on his shirt near his abdomen.
- Video evidence has been released of a security officer later dragging Kenji’s body by the arm, and authorities walking away with his camera equipment.
- An autopsy revealed an obvious gunshot entrance wound in Kenji’s abdomen/thorax area, and a larger exit wound in his back, indicating he had been shot from the front, at approximately the height of the gun barrel held by the soldier rushing at him in the photo.
- The photographer who captured the Pulitzer-winning moment stated in a written description that trucks of troops and riot police had pulled up to the street and then “two minutes later, the shooting started”. He also described seeing Kenji “flying backwards through the air” and then spotting a wound appear as the sandal-wearing soldier charged forward.
Given the extent of visual and forensic records, it would not be particularly difficult for an investigation to identify the prime suspect, the cause of death, and the weapon used.
Kenji was not an attention-seeker, but what he did for his profession can never be overstated. While millions of people watched conflicts unfold from the safety of their laptops, he was running through the streets of Baghdad, Kabul and Yangon.
The last time that I saw him was at a family restaurant in Tokyo. He was trying to get to Beirut to cover the fighting between Israel and Lebanon. At one point in the conversation, as the other diners talked about food, the weather and office troubles, Kenji asked me: “Are you willing to risk your life to cover a story?”
He was. He covered those stories from up close – standing next to protesters, and even riding in the back of a pickup truck as it rushed along dusty roads to take a wounded person to a hospital. He used his camera to document the pain and struggle of life in conflict zones.
A replica of Kenji’s main video camera is now part of a sculpture that adorns his gravestone.
N. Shibly, Ph.D., is a political branding consultant. He is author of A Monkey with a Razor Blade: Political, Social and Racial Insults from Simple Jests to Advocacy of Genocide.
References:
Photos of Nagai’s body being dragged by soldiers:
Photo credit for Nagai’s sister receiving camera:
Noriko Ogawa, sister of the late Japanese journalist Kenji Nagai, who was shot dead in Yangon, Myanmar while covering the Saffron Revolution in 2007, receives his camera and footage from journalist Aye Chan Naing at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Thailand in Bangkok on April 26, 2023. (Photo by Jack Taylor / AFP)
https://toronto.citynews.ca/2023/04/26/slain-japanese-journalists-camera-surfaces-after-15-years/
Photo of bloodstain on Nagai’s shirt:
https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/burma/video-journalist-recounts-death-amid-chaos.html
Photo of Nagai’s grave with camera sculpture:
Adrees Latif description of how he took the photo:
Committee to Protect Journalists report with Pulitzer photo:
https://cpj.org/2007/09/japanese-photographer-killed-as-burmese-troops-cra/
