By: American journalist Paul Salopek peered through a prison cell window at daily street protests against his country and the United Nations until one day the demonstrators directed their anger at him.
There were "truckloads of people in front of the low prison wall chanting slogans against the U.S. and the U.N., and I was the so-called American spy being held there," Salopek said.
The Chicago Tribune journalist, who lives in Columbus, returned to New Mexico on Sunday from the war-torn Darfur region where he had been held for more than a month on espionage charges.
Salopek smiled slightly as he got off a private jet and later received a big hug from his wife and a National Geographic editor.
Salopek, 44, was on assignment for National Geographic magazine when he was arrested Aug. 6 and accused of passing information illegally, writing "false news" and entering the African country without a visa.
On his return to New Mexico, Salopek was accompanied by Gov. Bill Richardson, who had traveled to Sudan last week to meet with President Omar al-Bashir and persuade him to release the journalist and his colleagues.
Salopek's wife, Linda Lynch, and Chicago Tribune Editor Ann Marie Lipinski also traveled on the aircraft from Darfur to New Mexico. The group was met in Albuquerque by Don Belt, a senior editor at National Geographic.
Lynch, who held her husband's hand during a news conference and smiled often at him, said she had been in the unenviable position of having to speak for him during his captivity.
"Today, to be able to watch him speak and be with him is inexpressibly joyful for me," Lynch said.
Salopek said in a news conference he initially intended to travel to the Sudan-Chad border, but made a last-minute decision to enter Sudan to visit a village rebuilding after war.
He said he wanted to try to put "a potentially positive spin on a dismal story."
He and his Chadian colleagues were arrested about an hour-and-a-half after entering Sudan by rebel forces.
His colleagues _ a driver, Idriss Abdulraham Anu and his interpreter Suleiman Abakar Moussa _ also were freed and were en route to Chad on Sunday, Belt said.
Salopek, Anu and Moussa were held by the rebels for three days before being transferred to the North Darfur capital of el-Fasher, Salopek said.
Salopek described conditions as "primitive" at first, but said "they progressively got better."
Families of inmates typically bring food for them to the jail, Salopek said. His group survived on assida, a starch-based porridge with red sauce and goat meat, that prison guards shared with them.
"I actually liked it," he said. "It was healthier than a lot of the junk food that I normally eat."
As American troops in the region learned of Salopek's arrest, he said they brought insect repellant, ready-to-eat meals, sleeping pads, news of the outside world and "reassurance someone was looking out for us."
Salopek said he passed the time by playing chess with one guard and practicing Arabic with others, who wanted to practice their English with him.
Salopek said he, Anu and Moussa worked as a team; when one's spirits were down, the others would cheer him up.
"That's what I think made the experience bearable," he said.
Salopek said he regrets entering the country without a visa. He hadn't intended to cross into Sudan, but he said he was told by sources that the area where he crossed was his best bet.
Although he doesn't have a clear picture of how the Sudanese government operates, he said he had expected to be convicted and sentenced to at least two years or more in a maximum security prison.
On Saturday, a judge in el-Fasher released Salopek and his assistants after a 13-minute hearing. Salopek had been set to go to trial the next day.
Richardson _ considered a possible contender for the Democratic nomination for president in 2008 _ is a former congressman, U.N. ambassador and energy secretary during the Clinton administration.
Richardson has known the Sudanese president and Sudan's Ambassador to the United States, Khadir Haroun Ahmed, since 1996 when he helped get three Red Cross workers, including an Albuquerque pilot, released from Marxist rebels in Sudan.
The governor said the president agreed to Salopek's release after a 40-minute conversation with him.
"What helped was that he remembered me from our meeting 10 years ago," Richardson said.
Salopek, who won Pulitzer Prizes in 2001 and in 1998, said he will head to his sister's home in the northern New Mexico town of Cordova before going to Columbus, a town on the Mexican border where many of the 2,000 inhabitants placed yellow ribbons on their front doors, the bank and public buildings in support of his release.
Salopek then plans to "make rounds in Chicago and Washington to rack up an enormous beer tab," he said.
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