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November 30, 2017updated 01 Dec 2017 7:42am

BBC heeds Samaritans’ advice on moment Slobodan Praljak drank poison – Times and Telegraph put it on front page

By Freddy Mayhew

The BBC made an editorial decision not to show the moment a war criminal drank poison while in the dock at The Hague based on advice on reporting suicide from charity the Samaritans.

As well as abstaining from broadcasting the court footage, in which former Bosnian Croat general Slobodan Praljak can be seen drinking from a small vial and later telling the court that it was poison, the BBC also took steps to blur front page images of the moment in its newspaper round-up.

Both the Times and Telegraph ran an image of Praljak on their front pages, which were then blurred by the BBC in its The Papers blog.

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