KHARTOUM, Sudan -- The president of Sudan agreed to release American journalist Paul Salopek on Saturday after meeting with New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a spokesman for the governor said.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for the Chicago Tribune and his Chadian driver and interpreter will be picked up by Richardson in the war-torn Darfur region, where the three were arrested, said Pahl Shipley, a spokesman for the governor.
Salopek, who has a home in New Mexico, was on assignment for National Geographic magazine when he was arrested last month and charged with espionage, passing information illegally, writing "false news" and entering the African country without a visa. His trial was set to begin Sunday.
Richardson said Friday he told President Omar al-Bashir that releasing the three "was the right thing to do."
"Paul Salopek is not a spy, he is my constituent and a respected journalist who was attempting to do his job telling the story of the people, culture and history of the sub-Saharan region known as the Sahel," Richardson said in a statement.
Salopek's wife, Linda, had traveled with Richardson to Sudan to help secure his release, Shipley said.
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"We are overjoyed that Paul Salopek and his Chadian assistants are being released, after their monthlong detainment in Sudan," said Chris Johns, editor in chief of the National Geographic magazine. "We are incredibly grateful to the wide circle of individuals and organizations that helped in the effort to secure Paul's release. And we are especially appreciative of the personal role Gov. Richardson took in the process that has to led this outcome."
Shipley said Richardson asked al-Bashir to release the men on "humanitarian grounds."
In 2001, Salopek won a Pulitzer for international reporting for his work covering Africa. In 1998, he won a Pulitzer for explanatory reporting for his coverage of the Human Genome Diversity Project.
Richardson, a former congressman, U.N. ambassador and energy secretary during the Clinton administration, secured the release in 1996 of three Red Cross workers, including an Albuquerque pilot, from Marxist rebels in Sudan.
Richardson also has traveled to Iraq, North Korea and Cuba to gain the release of Americans held prisoner. Last year, he went to North Korea at the communist government's invitation.
Associated Press writer Anna Johnson in Cairo, Egypt contributed to this report.
