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SCMP Reporter

A Hong Kong-based journalist was among those injured in the Jakarta turmoil on Wednesday.

 Tom Bradby, 32, a correspondent for Independent Television News (ITN), was hit by a flare hurled at close range by rioters.

 The flare, attached to a length of chain, broke his leg. The Briton spent three hours in surgery yesterday as doctors worked to repair the compound fracture.

 His wife, Claudia, speaking last night from the family home in Barker Road, Mid-Levels, said her husband had been trying to leave the area after filming the riots. 'They thought it was a good idea to extricate themselves from the situation and the marauding mobs,' she said.

 'But Tom had to go back and fetch a BBC cameraman. In the end [Tom] didn't find him, but fell to the ground after an incendiary device hit his calf.'   A senior ITN news editor and two camera technicians escorted Bradby, a father of three, to Pertamina Hospital in Jakarta.

 'The doctors were worried about infection so he was transferred to a Singapore hospital, where the care is better,' Mrs Bradby said.

 Doctors said Bradby's chances of making a full recovery were excellent.

 Mrs Bradby said the incident was simply bad luck and illustrated the gravity of the situation in Jakarta.

 'As Tom said this morning, he was unlucky to be hit but lucky in that he was only hit where he was.'  An ITN executive will decide whether Bradby should be flown home.

 Bradby was one of three journalists injured in the violent protests that erupted soon after Muslim intellectual Abdurrahman Wahid was elected President.

 The journalist joined ITN in 1990 and moved to Hong Kong in August last year.



Hong Kong-based journalist injured by flare during riot turmoil