US journalist who has been detained in Turkey for the past two months, Lindsey Snell, has been freed and is returning to the US.
Snell was arrested in Turkey on August 6 for “violating a military zone” after she crossed back into the country from Syria, where she had been filming civilians affected by airstrikes in the countryside near rebel-held Aleppo and Idlib.
The US government has been reluctant to comment on the details of Snell’s case. But before she was detained in Turkey in August, Snell wrote on a Facebook post that during her time in Syria, she had been kidnapped by militants affiliated with the faction then known as the al-Nusra Front, al-Qaida’s affiliate in Syria.
She said she managed to escape with the help of Syrian contacts, and then made it back to the border with Turkey, where she was arrested, the Guardian reports.
Her husband Wardak, who is is from Afghanistan, traveled to Istanbul after Snell’s arrest to assist with her case, and was himself detained on 22 August. He has alleged that Turkish authorities accused him being involved in the coup, and preventing him from leaving the country.
