PITTSBURGH (AP):

A Christian group sent a complaint to the U.S. Federal Communi-cations Commission over a television news investigation that apparently led to the suicide of a pastor who was videotaped going into an adult bookstore.

In the letter, the Christian Associates of Southwestern Pennsylvania asks KDKA-TV to apologise to the pastor's church and to the Pittsburgh Presbytery "for the misleading promos and unfortunate lapse in journalistic reporting that led to the Rev. Brent Dugan's unfortunate death," the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported yesterday.

Dugan, pastor of Community Presbyterian Church of Ben Avon, a Pittsburgh parish, committed suicide by overdosing on aspirin and alcohol in a motel room on November 3. He killed himself a few days after KDKA-TV, the CBS affiliate in Pittsburgh, began airing promos showing his face and saying it would reveal his illicit behaviour.

The station announced during a November 2 newscast that it would not air the story because it had learned the pastor was missing and contemplating suicide, but Dugan apparently never learned of that decision.

In a last letter to the Pittsburgh Presbytery, the local governing body that oversaw Dugan's church, Dugan acknowledged having a sexual relationship with a man and said that man set up his visit to an adult bookstore that was videotaped by KDKA, said the Rev. James Mead, pastor of the presbytery. Dugan's letter was one of several that he left behind for friends, his congregation and others before he died, Mead said.