Journalist tells of Iraq jail ordeal

Journalist tells of Iraq jail ordeal

Mr McAllester is safe in Jordan

A British journalist imprisoned in Iraq for a week has told the BBC how he feared for his life.

Matthew McAllester, 33, who has been reporting the war for the New York-based newspaper Newsday, was held in a Baghdad prison on suspicion of spying.

Released on Tuesday, he was taken by Iraq authorities to Jordan from where he spoke to BBC One's Breakfast on Friday.

Mr McAllester, from Edinburgh, said he and his colleague Spanish photographer Moises Saman were interrogated by Iraqi officials with the implication they were being accused of being spies.

I turned my back too scared to watch

Matthew McAllester

"They never actually told us what we were being arrested for and we were never formally charged with anything," he said.

Mr McAllester, from Edinburgh, was taken from his hotel room to Abu Ghraib prison just outside the capital, the largest jail in the Arab world on 24 March.

Beatings

He told of his terror as other prisoners in the cell block were regularly beaten.

"I have to say I turned my back too scared to watch.

"I am not sure whether it was a message being sent by our interrogators, who were otherwise quite polite, that this could be on the menu for us next if we didn't tell them what they wanted to hear."

Janey McAllester is looking forward to seeing her brother

Mr McAllester, who has also written for Scotland on Sunday, said he would be returning home but wanted to get back to reporting from Baghdad as soon as possible.

On his release, Mr McAllester told Newsday: "We thought we were going to be killed at any moment."

He was interrogated several times by up to 12 Iraqi officials who refused to believe he was a journalist.

He and his 29-year-old colleague often felt bombs exploding nearby and an anti-aircraft battery inside the jail kept them awake.

His sister Janey McAllester told Breakfast how the family feared the worse at times but tried to stay positive.

Speaking from the London studios, she said it was her brother's editor who let her know he was safe before Mr McAllester phoned.

"Just to hear his voice and know for certain that he was OK was brilliant," she said.

Mr McAllester was born in London but grew up in Edinburgh's West End.

Relief

His father, Don McAllester, 63, told BBC Radio Scotland he was delighted to know he was alive.

Speaking earlier this week from his Perthshire home, he said: "It's been one of the worst weeks ever.

Photographer Moises Saman was held with Mr McAllester

"He had been in dangerous situations before, so deep down I was confident he had managed to get through it all right, but there were some horrible moments of pessimism when the imagination just started running riot."

There was also relief at Newsday, which had enlisted the help of US civil rights campaigner, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, and the Papal Nuncio in Baghdad to get information from the Iraqi authorities.

Two freelance photographers who disappeared at the same time, Molly Bingham and Johan Spanner, have also turned up safely in Jordan.

A BBC cameraman, Australian cameraman and two British journalists have died in Iraq since the conflict began.

Two colleagues of ITN's Terry Lloyd, one of the British television reporters who died near Basra, are still missing.

BBC cameraman Kaveh Golestan died in northern Iraq after stepping on a landmine.

Veteran Channel 4 reporter Gaby Rado was found dead in the car park of a hotel in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq.

And Australian cameraman, Paul Moran, was killed in a car bomb in the northern Iraqi town of Khurmal on 22 March.