Ivory Coast probes reporter killing

Jean Helene had reported from Africa for many years

Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo has promised an immediate investigation into the fatal shooting of a French journalist in the main city, Abidjan.

Jean Helene, the Abidjan correspondent for the Paris-based Radio France Internationale (RFI), was killed outside a police station while waiting to interview a number of arrested Ivorian opposition activists.

A police officer has been arrested in connection with the shooting.

His body is being flown back home by the French military.

Hundreds of French citizens turned out to pay their respects and to accompany Jean Helene's coffin to the aircraft.

French President Jacques Chirac, speaking in Niger at the launch of a tour of former French West Africa, condemned the attack, demanding "exemplary justice" of Ivory Coast's government.

Reporters' fears

A military prosecutor said on Wednesday that Helene's killing was "intentional", AFP news agency reports.

"The autopsy showed that the shot pierced the left temple. It is a villainous crime. The sergeant will be prosecuted at the military tribunal and risks at least 20 years in prison," Ange Kessy told a news conference.

Jean Helene's body was found outside the police station

Helene, 50, was an experienced journalist who had reported from Africa for many years.

Foreign journalists and those seen as pro-opposition have frequently been targeted in government-held areas since a rebellion began a year ago.

The BBC's Kate Davenport in Abidjan says foreign journalists in the city are shocked, sorry and outraged.

"It could have been any of us doing our job," she told the BBC Focus on Africa programme.

Security Minister Martin Bleou has issued a statement, promising to prevent further intimidation of journalists and to uphold the freedom of the press.

Rebel leader Guillaume Soro condemned "this cowardly assassination".

"The hateful campaign spread by the national press and by some leaders certainly prepared the ground for the execution of the crime," he told Reuters news agency.

French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said: "The African continent and the French press had lost this night an irreplaceable friend."

'Argument'

"The security service of the French embassy confirms the death of Jean Helene after an argument with a policeman turned sour," said a spokesman for the French embassy in Abidjan, Francis Guenon.

According to eyewitnesses at the police station in the centre of the city, a policeman had come in and told his superior that a "white man" was waiting outside.

French officials called for an immediate investigation

"His boss told him to forget it, that the man was only waiting to interview the freed man, and the policeman went back out again," one of the eyewitnesses told the AFP news agency.

The eyewitnesses said the policeman then left the building and a shot was heard afterwards.

Mr Gbagbo, Prime Minister Seydou Diarra and French Ambassador Gildas Le Lidec rushed to the scene of the incident.

'Anti-French feeling'

Ivory Coast is a former French colony, and correspondents say French newspapers and radio are the most influential foreign media in the country.

Ever since a civil war began last year, some of the French media have been accused of being biased towards the rebels.

Although the war was officially declared over in July, Ivory Coast is still divided between a rebel-held north and government-controlled south and anti-French feelings still run high, correspondents say.

Some 3,800 French troops are monitoring a buffer zone between the two sides.