The Assassination

On 22 July 1987, Naji Al-Ali was shot in the head outside the London office of Al-Qabas, the Kuwaiti newspaper he worked for. He remained in a coma for five weeks and died on 29 August 1987.

He was assassinated because his pen refused to side with anyone but the dispossessed — those he called the people "underneath". He flattered no regime, no faction, no tribe. His character Handala, the refugee child, turned his back on the world; the world replied with a bullet.

The case has never been publicly resolved. The shooter has not been named, and the parties who planned the killing have never been identified. What is known is that his voice troubled many, and that a single bullet did not silence him: his cartoons are still in circulation, and Handala is still there — a silent witness, waiting for the return.