Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Paul Salopek said from a Sudanese prison Friday night that the government would soon release him and two Chadian colleagues after a 34-day confinement on charges of espionage and producing "false news." President Omar Hassan al-Bashir agreed to release Salopek after meeting with New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D) in Khartoum, Sudan's capital. The three men are expected to be freed Saturday, Richardson's office said in a statement.Salopek, a foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, was arrested Aug. 6 while working on a story for National Geographic magazine about the Sahel region that runs along the southern edge of the Sahara. Richardson traveled to Sudan with Salopek's wife, Linda Lynch, and Chicago Tribune editor Anne-Marie Lipinski. Salopek and his wife have a home in New Mexico. National Geographic Editor Chris Johns met the group in Khartoum.
Salopek, 44, will return to the United States with Richardson, though the details of their trip have not yet been worked out. Also being freed are Salopek's Chadian translator, Suleiman Abakar Moussa, and his driver, Idriss Abdulraham Anu. "All three of us, Mr. Idriss, Mr. Sulieman, are all gratified," Salopek said by phone from prison here in El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state.