Idhanka.com

Nov 26 – Canadian freelance journalist Amanda Lindhout and her Australian colleague, freelance photographer Nigel Brennan, flew out of Somalia Tuesday morning, more than a year after they were kidnapped near Mogadishu.

Lindhout and Brennan flew from Mogadishu to Nairobi on a chartered flight, said Somalian National Security Minister Mohamed Abdullahi.

Freelance reporter David McDougall told CTV’s Canada AM that the two journalists were quietly spirited through Kenya’s Nairobi Wilson Airport before they could be questioned by members of the press.

“She was flown out, arrived in Nairobi this afternoon and then taken immediately to the Aga Khan Hospital for a medical — this was routine as far as we know,” McDougall said during a telephone interview from Nairobi on Thursday.

McDougall said it is expected that Lindhout will be taken to a Nairobi hotel where her mother and some of Brennan’s Australian relatives are staying.

Lindhout and her colleague were released Wednesday after 15 months of captivity. They had been held against their will since Aug. 23, 2008.

The freed Alberta native spoke to CTV News Channel only hours after her release, describing a months-long ordeal that saw her beaten and tortured and forced to live in a room without windows.

“It was extremely oppressive. I was kept by myself at all times. I had no one to speak to. I was normally kept in a room with a light, no window, I had nothing to write on or with. There was very little food. I was allowed to use the toilet exactly five times a day,” Lindhout told CTV during a telephone interview from Mogadishu on the day of her release.

“So, basically, my day was sitting on a corner, on the floor, 24 hours a day for the last 15 months. There were times that I was beaten, that I was tortured. It was an extremely, extremely difficult situation.”

The precise details of Lindhout and Brennan’s release are still not clear.

Police spokesperson Col. Abdullahi Hassan Barise did not say if a ransom was paid for the journalists’ release, though Lindhout said money “was paid by our families.”

The exact amount of ransom exchanged for Lindhout and Brennan is also unknown. Late Wednesday, a police officer and a lawmaker told The Associated Press that it was a $700,000 ransom fee. Months ago, the kidnappers had originally requested $1 million.

The Globe and Mail reported Thursday that a Calgary security consultancy was involved in the negotiations with the kidnappers and that Lindhout’s father recently amended his mortgage, increasing its value by $145,100 last month.

Source: CTV News (Canada)