September 11, 2006 Previous Post
Salopek Comes Home
New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson was successful in his diplomatic efforts to win the release of journalist Paul Salopek, who had been held in Sudan on charges of espionage. Salopek returned to his home in New Mexico yesterday and his paper, the Chicago Tribune, spoke with him about the ordeal:
In the darkest moments of his monthlong detention in Sudan, Chicago Tribune correspondent Paul Salopek said, it was difficult to shake the feeling that he was going to face years in a dank jail cell.
After arriving in his home state of New Mexico on Sunday, Salopek said that for nearly two weeks after his Aug. 6 arrest, Sudanese forces held him in three jails, passing around him and his Chadian driver and interpreter like "a hot potato."
On the 13th day, his government jailers told him at the end of a marathon interrogation that they had found notebooks of interviews with refugees in Chad and maps of Sudan among his belongings.
(snip/...)
http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2006/09/11/publiceye/entry1993741.shtml