Freed Times Journalists Give Account of Captivity

The Libyan government freed four New York Times journalists on Monday, six days after they were captured while covering the conflict between government and rebel forces in the eastern city of Ajdabiya.

Turkish Ministry photo

According to a story by Jeremy W. Peters at nytimes.com, they were released into the custody of Turkish diplomats and crossed safely into Tunisia in the late Monday afternoon, from where they provided a harrowing account of their captivity.

Like many other Western journalists, the four had entered the rebel-controlled eastern region of Libya over the Egyptian border without visas to cover the insurrection against Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. They were detained in Ajdabiya by forces loyal to Colonel Qaddafi.

The journalists are Anthony Shadid, The Times’s Beirut bureau chief, who has won two Pulitzer Prizes for international reporting; two photographers, Tyler Hicks and Lynsey Addario, who have extensive experience in war zones; and a reporter and videographer, Stephen Farrell, who in 2009 was captured by the Taliban in Afghanistan and was rescued by British commandos.

After The New York Times reported having lost contact with the journalists last Tuesday, officials with the Qaddafi government pledged that if they had been detained by the government’s military forces, they would be located and released unharmed.

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