A Tale of Two Journalists

Tue, Apr 15, 2008 at 6:37:13 pm PDT

Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein has been freed, under a new amnesty deal with the Iraqi government.

On Monday afternoon, American military officials announced that they would release Bilal Hussein, a photographer for the Associated Press who has been in custody for two years on allegations of aiding insurgents. An Iraqi judicial panel on Sunday dismissed the last charge against Mr. Hussein and ordered him released.

Maj. Gen. Douglas M. Stone, who signed the release order, said, “After the action by the Iraqi judicial committees, we reviewed the circumstances of Hussein’s detention and determined that he no longer presents an imperative threat to security.”

CBS reporter Richard Butler, meanwhile, was also freed—by the US-trained Iraqi military, from an Al Qaeda hellhole, after two months in captivity.

Richard Butler, a British photographer working for CBS who was kidnapped two months ago, was freed when Iraqi soldiers burst into a house in central Basra on Monday morning and found him bound and with a bag tied over his head.