(CNN) Chris Cramer, the passionate and forthright leader at the helm of CNN International for 11 years, has died, aged 73. It was a passion born of his own experience as a hostage during the Iranian Embassy siege in London in 1980. Cramer had been in the embassy getting a visa when gunmen opposed to Ayatollah Khomeini stormed in. In January 2004 I was in a two-car CNN convoy ambushed by insurgents just south of Baghdad. It was Cramer, then Executive Vice President and Managing Director of CNN International, who knew exactly what those of us who survived were going through and acted accordingly.

Source: CNN January 17, 2021 09:00 UTC