Libya Frees 3 More Journalists

The Libyan government today released three journalists captured last week near a key eastern city that has been a daily battleground between Moammar Gadhafi's forces and Libyan rebels, according to the AFP. Reporter Dave Clark and photographer Roberto Schmidt, both of whom work for AFP, and Joe Raedle, a Getty photographer, were reportedly freed in Tripoli.

Citing a driver who was traveling with them, AFP said the journalists ran into a military convoy about seven miles outside the eastern city of Ajdabiya on Saturday, and the three were detained. Said AFP's chief executive in a statement, "I thank everyone in the company for his or her mobilization, the French government for its determination to find a just and happy end to this detention, and the Libyan authorities for their speed, following my urgent request, to liberate some journalists whose only aim was to witness the reality of the situation that Libya is facing today." Click to read about the freed New York Times journalists' ordeal. (More Agence France-Presse stories.)