Journalists freed from Libya speak to press about detention

Two British journalists detained in Libya for three weeks and accused of spying have spoken to the press about their experiences days after their release, and the fears they had for their future.

In an interview with the BBC Press TV journalist Nicolas Davies Jones said they "were just picked up" at a checkpoint in Libya in February, and that "there was no rhyme or reason to it".

"You worry. I wasn't just worried for myself, I was worried for Gareth my cameraman, for the three Libyans that were part of the team."

Earlier this month it was reported that the commander of the Saraya Swehli militia of Misrata, which was said to be holding the men, had claimed in a press conference that they were "being held for illegal entry and possible espionage".

"They came up to us and said we were Israeli paratroopers", Davies-Jones told the BBC, "I laughed at that", he added.

Now back in the UK after being released the journalist says he is going to try to "work through it".

"If I can't make sense of it I'm going to just ignore it and move on."

His colleague, cameraman Gareth Montgomery-Johnson, was interviewed by WalesOnline, which published the full interview today. He said that he had "understood it was a dangerous place to work but you hope this will not happen to you".

"All we had was the truth. We didn’t need to get our stories straight, we hadn’t done anything wrong and we knew all we could do was stand by that."

In the interview with WalesOnline Montgomery-Johnson describes how the pair helped each other.

"We had, in a short time, since I met him, become quite intuitive. Whilst locked up we tried to talk about 'normal' things to distract us, books we liked, the things we enjoyed. At other times we'd dance in the cell and be completely stupid, trying to keep our spirits up. We had to stay reasonable quiet, because we didn’t want to antagonise the militia."

He added that he "had no doubt that we were going to die, but the faint hope of seeing my family is all that kept me going".

It emerged over the weekend that the two journalists had been released and returned to the UK this week.

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