Missing American, French Journalists Released by Iraq

An American and a French journalist, missing and feared dead in Iraq for almost three weeks, are alive and on their way to Amman, Jordan, from Baghdad, CBS News reported Monday.

CBS News broadcast a brief interview with Frank Smyth, 29, and Alain Buu, 30, who were released from an Iraqi prison. Both men said they were fine, but they did not give full details of what happened to them after their capture by Iraqi troops while covering the Kurdish uprising in northern Iraq. “We weren’t treated badly,” Smyth said.

Smyth is a free-lance journalist for CBS News and New York City’s Village Voice, and Buu is a staff photographer for the French photo agency Gamma-Liaison.

However, there was no word on the fate of Gad Gross, a German photographer on assignment for Newsweek.

The journalists were last seen March 28 in northern Iraq. They had traveled across the mountains from Turkey to report on the Kurdish uprising against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

Jennifer Coley, a spokeswoman for Gamma-Liaison, said both men were “limited in what they could say, except to say they’re OK.”