Sky TV journalist killed by sniper, claims colleague.

A veteran cameraman for the Britain-based network Sky News was killed in Cairo on Wednesday.

Other journalists described close calls in the streets, and several were detained by authorities.

Mick Deane was working near Rabaa Square when he was shot.

''Despite receiving medical treatment for his injuries, he died shortly afterward,'' the network said. It declined to elaborate, saying an investigation was under way.

However, Sameer Bazbaz, his Sky News producer, said it was a sniper: ''Michael was about to lift the camera on his shoulder [when] a sniper from the other side opened fire and killed him instantly,'' Mr Bazbaz said.

Mr Deane was the first Western reporter to die on assignment in Egypt since the Committee to Protect Journalists starting keeping records in the early 1990s.

This northern summer two local reporters - Salah al-Din Hassan of news website Shaab Masr and Ahmed Assem el-Senousy of a Muslim Brotherhood newspaper - died in separate episodes.