The four New York Times journalists arrested in Libya will be released today, the newspaper reports.
In an interview Thursday with ABC News' Christiane Amanpour, Col. Moammar Gadhafi's son, Saif Gadhafi, said one of the journalists would be freed. But the Times said Libyan government officials later told the U.S. State Department that all four would be released.
“They entered the country illegally and when the army, when they liberated the city of Ajdabiya from the terrorists and they found her, they arrest her because you know, foreigners in this place,” Saif Gadhafi said, apparently referring to photographer Lynsey Addario. “But then they were happy because they found out she is American, not European. And thanks to that, she will be free tomorrow.”
The other journalists are Times Beirut bureau chief Anthony Shadid, a two-time Pulitzer-prize winning foreign correspondent; photographer Tyler Hicks; and reporter and videographer Stephen Farrell, who was captured by the Taliban in 2009 and saved by British commandos.
The Times said the four, like many Western journalists, crossed the Egyptian border to enter the rebel-controlled eastern region of Libya without visas to cover the insurrection against Qaddafi.
