BBC Reprimands Reporter Who 'Cried' about Arafat's Death

The British Broadcasting Corporation has upheld a complaint against one of its journalists who said in a radio report she cried when a dying Yasser Arafat was flown from the West Bank in 2004.

Barbara Plett made the remark in a dispatch for the "From Our Own Correspondent" program describing how she felt when a helicopter carrying Arafat, who was gravely ill, took off from his compound, according to a BBC Web site.

"When the helicopter carrying the frail old man rose from his ruined compound, I started to cry," she said in the 30 October, 2004 broadcast.

On the BBC's website, Helen Boaden, the director of news, says Barbara Plett "unintentionally gave the impression of over-identifying with Yasser Arafat and his cause".