Photojournalist films killer in final moments during Egyptian protest

CAIRO: A young Egyptian photographer likely captured the shooter on film as he was shot dead during a mass protest that was attacked by government soldiers this week.

Ahmed Samir Assem, 26, was one of 51 people killed when soldiers began shooting into the pro-Muslim Brotherhood crowd gathered outside the Republican Guard building in Cairo on Monday.

Grainy footage reported to be taken from Assem's camera shows a soldier perched on a rooftop calmly aiming and firing into the crowd, ducking for cover between shots.

The soldier then aims towards the camera and fires. The footage goes black.

Friends and relatives of Assem, who worked for Egypt’s Al-Horia Wa Al-Adala newspaper, told Britain's Telegraph that Assem captured his own death.

“At around 6am, a man came into the media centre with a camera covered in blood and told us that one of our colleagues had been injured,” Ahmed Abu Zeid, culture editor at Al-Horia Wa Al-Adala, told the Telegraph.

“Around an hour later, I received news that Ahmed had been shot by a sniper in the forehead while filming or taking pictures on top of the buildings around the incident.

“Ahmed’s camera was the only one which filmed the entire incident from the first moment."

The footage will be used as evidence of 'violations', the editor said.