American journalist Paul Salopek was released Saturday from a prison in the war-torn Darfur region where he was held for more than a month on espionage charges, news agencies reported. A judge in the North Darfur capital of al-Fasher released the Chicago Tribune journalist and his Chadian driver and interpreter after a 13-minute hearing.
"We are stopping the case and we are releasing you right now. And that is all," the judge said in English, according to the Tribune.
"I am grateful to the Sudanese President al-Bashir, (New Mexico) Governor (Bill) Richardson, the US ambassador, and of course the US consul who visited me in detention, and was helpful for me and my colleagues," Salopek, 44, told newspersons after arriving in Khartoum. He thanked them all for their help in securing his release and said his "treatment was excellent" while in detention.
Richardson travelled to Sudan on Friday to meet with al-Bashir and persuaded him to release Salopek, as well as the driver and interpreter. He picked up Salopek and his colleagues in al-Fasher on Saturday and took them back to Khartoum. "It was a humanitarian gesture," Richardson said Saturday during the news conference at a hotel, the Associated Press reported.
Salopek's wife, Linda Lynch and Chicago Tribune Editor Ann Marie Lipinski travelled with Richardson from Khartoum to Darfur on Saturday to Sudan.
Salopek was on assignment for National Geographic magazine when he was arrested August 6 and accused of passing information illegally, writing "false news" and entering the African country without a visa. Salopek was detained along with two Chadian citizens, the interpreter Suleiman Abakar Moussa and his driver, Abdulraham Anu.
On August 26 they were formally charged with espionage, passing information illegally, printing "false news" and entering the country without visas. Through their attorneys, they acknowledged the civil violation of entering the country illegally but denied the more serious criminal charges, including espionage. His trial was set to begin Sunday.
"I think the decision to come across the border from Chad was a mistake on my part and I apologize," Salopek said, according to Reuters. "However I would hope that it is not taken as an example that we should not cover the story. I think the story is getting more important, not less." He said if granted a visa he would come back and report on Darfur.
Tens of thousands of people have been killed and more than 2 million forced to flee to camps during 3-1/2 years of fighting in Darfur. Mostly non-Arab rebels took up arms accusing the central government of marginalising the remote region that borders Chad. Human rights organisations have accused government forces and their Janjaweed militia allies of widespread rights abuses.
Sudan is locked in a showdown with much of the world over whether to allow a United Nations peacekeeping force to deploy in Darfur. The Security Council voted to approve such a force to take over from a small African Union force in Darfur, but Sudan has rejected it, saying it would fight foreign peacekeepers if they tried to deploy.
During his meeting with al-Bashir, Richardson promised to relay a message to the Bush administration from the Sudanese president, requesting the good treatment and release of Sudanese prisoners held by the US at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The two also discussed Sudan's resistance to US and British efforts to deploy UN peacekeepers in Darfur, according to the Chicago Tribune.
Richardson, a former congressman, UN ambassador and energy secretary during the Clinton administration, said his previous success helping to get prisoners released in Sudan helped him secure Salopek's freedom. In 1996, Richardson helped get three Red Cross workers, including an Albuquerque pilot, released from Marxist rebels in Sudan.
Richardson agreed to help in Salopek's case at the request of Linda Lynch and Ann Marie Lipinski, and on August 30 had a dinner meeting in Washington with Sudanese Ambassador Khidir Haroun Ahmed, who had been Richardson's interpreter during his 1996 trip to the African nation, the Tribune reported. Richardson subsequently received an invitation from the Sudanese government to meet al-Bashir, and on Friday night the president agreed to arrange for the release of Salopek and the Chadians.
Everything did not go exactly as planned after the delegation flew from Khartoum to al-Fasher on Saturday morning. "There were some bureaucratic hiccups . . . You just sit and wait, be pleasant, be positive," the Democratic governor said.
When Richardson arrived in al-Fasher at midday, he met with the governor of North Darfur, as scheduled. But the governor told Richardson he did not have the papers authorising their release. The judge was out to lunch, they were told. There was talk that any release could be delayed until Sunday.
"Then we were told there was to be a trial," Lipinski said.
Late Saturday afternoon, the proceedings began in a hot courtroom, with ceiling fans humming above. Salopek and the Chadians sat on a bench to the right of the judge, who — alternating between English and Arabic — asked a few questions about passports and airplane tickets. Yousif switched back to English when he told the men they were free, according to the Tribune.
As they were leaving, the judge walked by and smiled at Salopek, shook his hand and said, "You will have a nice story to write about Sudan, especially al-Fasher, now."
"Everybody is absolutely delighted. I've worked for 20 years in Africa and never had a better day than this one," National Geographic editor and chief Chris Johns told the Tribune. Johns also accompanied Richardson on the trip.
Richardson's office said the governor convinced the Sudanese president that Salopek was a constituent and a respected American journalist, not a spy.
"The Sudanese government has been cooperative, and we are all relieved to be on our way home," Richardson said in a statement Saturday from Khartoum. "Paul is safely with his wife, Linda, and we will get them back home to New Mexico."
The journalist, who won Pulitzer Prizes in 2001 and in 1998, was scheduled to return to New Mexico, where he has a home, on Sunday. His two assistants were to go to Chad.
In Salopek's hometown of Columbus, New Mexico, residents hung yellow ribbons on the front doors of their homes, the bank and public buildings in support of the journalist.
Martha Skinner, the town's former mayor who looks after the Salopeks' home, said she was excited that the couple would return soon. "Unbelievable, oh, wonderful," she told the Associated Press. "I was terribly concerned, you know with what goes on in the world, especially to journalists."
