Sudan releases American journalist
The Sudanese government agreed to release a well-known American journalist, Paul Salopek, and two Chadians who were arrested and charged with espionage and with illegally crossing the border from Chad last month.
The journalist and his colleagues, an interpreter and a driver, were to be released Saturday on “humanitarian grounds,” after Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico met with Sudan’s president, Omar al-Bashir.
Mr. Richardson flew to Sudan on Friday at the invitation of the Sudanese government. Mr. Salopek and his wife, Linda Lynch, have a home in New Mexico.
Mr. Salopek, a foreign correspondent for The Chicago Tribune who has won two Pulitzer Prizes, was detained by a militant group allied to the Sudanese government in the western region of Darfur on Aug. 6. His driver, Idriss Abdulraham Anu, and his interpreter, Suleiman Abakar Moussa, both Chadians, were also detained.
The group turned them over to the government, which charged the men with spying. The arrests came amid tensions over a proposed United Nations peacekeeping force in Darfur that the Sudanese government has refused to accept, despite a Security Council resolution calling for its deployment.
nytimes
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