Afghan journalist freed
MIRAN SHAH – Pakistan on June 2 released an Afghan journalist held on charges of trying to sneak a US reporter into a tribal area where foreigners are forbidden, an official said.
“Sami Yusufzai has been released and he left Miran Shah at 2:30 pm,” deputy administrator of North Waziristan Syed Zahurul Islam told AFP. An AFP reporter in the area saw Yusufzai leaving in a car for Peshawar.
“We received a call from Islamabad to release Yusufzai,” Islam said but declined to name the official.
Sami Yusufzai, who contributes to US weekly magazine Newsweek, was detained at a checkpost on the outskirts of Bannu city on April 21 along with freelance US reporter Eliza Griswold, who writes for The New Yorker magazine.
Griswold disguised herself as an Afghan women by wearing a Burqa, the all-enveloping veil, while Yusufzai told security officials at a checkpost she was his relative.
They were trying to visit the North Waziristan area near the Afghan border, the focus of a Pakistani military hunt for suspected Al-Qaeda and Taliban fugitives.
Source: The News
Date:6/3/2004
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