20120319
Press TV
Press TV journalists, Nicholas Davies and Gareth Montgomery-Johnson, who were held by Libyan militia for less than a month, have been freed, AFP reports, citing the Libyan Interior Ministry.
"The Interior Ministry granted their release when it became obvious that no crime had been committed," Deputy Interior Minister Omar al-Khadrawi told a news conference in the Libyan capital Tripoli on Sunday.
Davies, a Press TV correspondent, and Montgomery-Johnson, a cameraman working for the channel, were accompanying the Libyan official when he made the announcement, but they were not allowed to speak to the press.
In the early hours of February 22, Libya’s Saraya Swehli militia arrested Davies, alias Nick Jones, and the cameraman along with two locals in the Libyan capital.
An official with the militia told Human Rights Watch that the militiamen had detained the men because they were driving late at night and taking photographs, which the militia had found suspicious. The commander of the militia, Faraj Swehli, accused the pair of not having proper immigration papers.
On Wednesday, after weeks of negotiations between the militia and the ruling National Transitional Council as well as pressure from human rights groups, the militia handed over the men to the Interior Ministry.
Amnesty International had said that the detention of the Press TV journalists was unlawful and that the militias had to stop its illegal actions and close all its unlawful detention centers in Libya.
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