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August 26, 2011

US freelance journalist escapes after six months in Tripoli prison

By Dominic wireposts

An American freelance journalist has escaped from a Libyan prison in Tripoli after being held in solitary confinement for six months.

Matthew VanDyke disappeared in March after travelling to Libya to chronicle the uprisings. He told the BBC: “I was in (the Libyan oil town of) Brega and I believe we were ambushed. I was hit in the head and I woke up in a room to the sounds of a man being tortured in the room above me.

“They took me to Tripoli and I spent about half the time in one prison and half the time in the other, and the entire time I was in solitary confinement.”

He said that he escaped when the Abu Salim prison was bombed.

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