The husband and fellow reporter of late Japanese war correspondent Mika Yamamoto has urged Damascus to investigate her death, AFP reports.

Yamamoto’s common-law husband, Kazutaka Sato, went to the Syrian embassy in Tokyo to request a “thorough investigation” into the case. Sato was with Yamamoto when they came under fire at an “extremely close range” by what appeared to be pro-government forces. The 56-year old described the incident as “an outrageous act, threatening the freedom of the press” which can never be forgiven nor forgotten by the international community. An official from the Syrian embassy allegedly told Sato that the government held no responsibility over the “well-being of the two journalists” because they had no proper visas.

Mika Yamamoto was a veteran war correspondent for Japan Press. She specialized in conflict zone coverage and covered the war in Afghanistan and the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. According to the official autopsy report, Yamamoto had been shot nine times, including in the neck, damaging her cervical spinal cord. She was the fourth journalist killed in war-torn Syria since March 2011.