British reporter Alan Johnston Released After 115 Days in Captivity

Following some 115 days in captivity, British reporter Alan Johnston, looking pale and tired, was released in the Gaza Strip and said it was "fantastic" to be free after an "appalling" ordeal. Johnston told a news conference that he was moved twice during his nearly four months in captivity.
The British Broadcasting Corp. correspondent described his time in captivity as "occasionally quite terrifying" in a telephone interview with the BBC. "It was an appalling experience," he said, speaking from the home of deposed Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh in Gaza.
"It is indescribably good to be out," he said in a steady and composed voice. "It is just the most fantastic thing to be free," he added, saying he felt as well as could be expected.
"I didn't know where it was going to end," he said, adding that he had endured "an extraordinary level of stress" and psychological pressure. "I probably got out if it as well as I could have."
Johnston was kidnapped by a shadowy, little-known group from a Gaza City street on March 12 and held far longer than any other foreign reporter in Gaza.
After his release, he was taken to the home of Haniyeh in Gaza City's Shati refugee camp. Before entering, Johnston told an Associated Press reporter, "I'm OK, really, I'm OK."
Television footage showed Johnston emerging from a building in Gaza surrounded by a throng of armed Palestinian men and escorted into a waiting car while cameras flashed around him.
Simon Wilson, the BBC's Middle East bureau chief, speaking to BBC News 24 from Jerusalem, said he had spoken to Johnston following his release. "His first thoughts were for others and for what they've done for him."
The BBC also reported Johnston had spoken to his father since his release. A BBC spokesman in London could not confirm details of the terms of the reporter's release.
There was no immediate comment from Johnston's captors, the Army of Islam.
Hamas had demanded Johnston's freedom since it violently seized control of Gaza last month, in an apparent bid to curry favor with the West.
On Tuesday, Hamas gunmen took positions around the Army of Islam's stronghold, stepping up the pressure to secure his release.
Members of Hamas' 6,000-person militia moved onto rooftops of high-rise buildings and deployed gunmen in streets of the Gaza City neighborhood inhabited by the Doghmush clan, the large, heavily armed family that leads the Army of Islam.
In an afternoon exchange of fire, a Palestinian civilian was killed, Hamas said, blaming the Doghmush forces. No other casualties were reported.
"The clocks have begun ticking toward the release of Alan Johnston," said Hamas spokesman Ghazi Hamad. "The operation of the interior ministry Executive Forces has started, and they are tightening the siege on the people involved in his kidnap."
Interior Ministry spokesman Khaled Abu Hilal said Tuesday that security forces "will not spare any efforts to free the British journalist." Hamas radio broadcast a toll free phone number, urging people to call in any information about the case.
On Monday, Hamas arrested the spokesman of the Army of Islam, giving it a potentially valuable bargaining chip in its efforts to release Johnston.
Late Tuesday, the Doghmush clan released nine students loyal to Hamas that they kidnapped earlier in the week. Hamas officials and mediators said the release was meant to pave the way for Johnston's release.
Then four Army of Islam members were freed by Hamas, said Abu Mujahid from the Popular Resistance Committees, the militant group handling the negotiations. The four included the Army of Islam spokesman arrested Monday.
Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum accused Johnston's captors of smearing the Palestinian people's reputation and of seeking "to prove to the world that we are a group of militias that fight each other to gain personal ends."
The Army of Islam, whose formerly close relations with Hamas have soured, had demanded that Britain first release a radical Islamic cleric with ties to al-Qaida. It also had threatened to kill Johnston if Hamas tried to free him by force.
Last week, the Army of Islam posted a video message from Johnston on a militant Web site in which he appeared to be wearing an explosives belt that he said his captors would detonate if there were an attempt to free him.
The same group was involved in the capture of Israeli Cpl. Gilad Shalit, who was seized more than a year ago in a raid on an Israeli army post near Gaza.

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Lewis "Scooter" Libby Got What Paris Hilton Could Not Get

Some five hours after a federal appeals panel ruled that Lewis Libby cannot delay his 30-months prison term, President has intervened to prevent the former vice-presidential aide, from serving the prison term.
Libby was convicted obstructing an inquiry into the leaking of a CIA agent's name, and was just waiting for a date to surrender.
After months of sidestepping pardon questions, Bush stepped in. He did not issue a pardon but erased a prison sentence that he felt was just too harsh.
"I respect the jury's verdict," Bush said in a written statement. "But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive. Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby's sentence that required him to spend 30 months in prison."
Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald disputed the president's assertion that the prison term was excessive. Libby was sentenced under the same laws as other criminals, Fitzgerald said. "It is fundamental to the rule of law that all citizens stand before the bar of justice as equals."
Libby's attorney, Theodore Wells, said in a statement that the Libby family was grateful for Bush's action and continued to believe in his innocence.
Because he was not pardoned, Libby remains the highest-ranking White House official convicted of a crime since the Iran-Contra affair. But he won't have to serve a day in prison, a fact that his friends cheered, even those who wished he'd received a full pardon.
"That's fantastic. It's a great relief," said former Ambassador Richard Carlson, who helped raise millions for Libby's defense fund. "Scooter Libby did not deserve to go to prison and I'm glad the president had the courage to do this."
Though the leak investigation is complete and nobody will have to serve prison time, the scandal that has loomed over the Bush administration for years did not subside. Democrats were enraged.
"Libby's conviction was the one faint glimmer of accountability for White House efforts to manipulate intelligence and silence critics of the Iraq war," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. "Now, even that small bit of justice has been undone."
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Bush's decision showed the president "condones criminal conduct."
The president left intact a $250,000 fine and two years probation for his conviction of lying and obstructing justice in a probe into the leak of a CIA operative's identity. The former operative, Valerie Plame, contends the White House was trying to discredit her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, a critic of Bush's Iraq policy.
Congress ought to investigate "whether or not the president himself is a participant in the obstruction of justice," Wilson told The Santa Fe New Mexican. Wilson, Plame and their children moved to Santa Fe earlier this year.
"The president has utterly subverted the rule of law and the system of justice that has undergirded this country of ours for the past 220 years," Wilson said Tuesday on NBC's "Today" show.
Bush said his action still "leaves in place a harsh punishment for Mr. Libby."
The leak case has hung over the White House for years. Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald questioned top administration officials, including Bush and Cheney, about their possible roles. And Libby's trial revealed the extraordinary steps that Bush and Cheney were willing to take to discredit a critic of the Iraq war.
Nobody was ever charged with the leak, including Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage or White House political adviser Karl Rove, who provided the information for the original article. Prosecutors said Libby obstructed the investigation by lying about how he learned about Plame and whom he told.
Already at record lows in the polls, Bush risked a political backlash with his decision. President Ford tumbled in the polls after his 1974 pardon of Richard M. Nixon, and the decision was a factor in Ford's loss in the 1976 election.
Bush's father - former President George H.W. Bush - issued pardons shortly before leaving office in 1992 for former Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger and five other former officials who had served in the Reagan administration. The six were involved in the Iran-Contra affair, in which arms were secretly sold to Iran to win the freedom of American hostages, then the money was funneled to anti-communist guerrillas in Nicaragua despite a congressional ban on military aid.
On Monday, White House officials said Bush knew he could take political heat for commuting Libby's prison sentence and simply did what he thought was right. They would not say what advice Cheney might have given the president.
Bush said Cheney's former aide was not getting off free.
"The reputation he gained through his years of public service and professional work in the legal community is forever damaged," Bush said. "His wife and young children have also suffered immensely. He will remain on probation. The significant fines imposed by the judge will remain in effect. The consequences of his felony conviction on his former life as a lawyer, public servant and private citizen will be long-lasting."
Attorney William Jeffress said he had spoken to Libby briefly by phone and "I'm happy at least that Scooter will be spared any prison time. The prison sentence was imminent but obviously the conviction itself is a heavy blow to Scooter."
If only Bush was there for paris, she would not have returned to jail, sorry paris, he was too busy with Iraq. Or could Lewis "Scooter" Libby be above the law? Maybe Partially.

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