Contributed Photo
Clare Morgana Gillis, a journalist and New Haven native who had been in the custody of the Libyan government since early April, is free, according to The Atlantic magazine.
The magazine’s website quotes an Associated Press story, in which Gillis herself says she and three other journalists were released after receiving a one-year suspended sentence for entering the country illegally.
Gillis, 34, was reporting on the conflict in Libya for The Atlantic and USA Today when she was detained April 5. Her mother, Jane Gillis of East Rock, referred a reporter to the magazine in a brief phone conversation Wednesday.
Gillis graduated from the Hopkins School; her mother works at Yale. On Tuesday, Jane Gillis said the family was “hopeful” that reports out of Tripoli that her daughter would be released are accurate. The family was waiting for Clare Gillis to call home.
In an AP photo posted on The Atlantic’s site, Gillis looks tired and pale but otherwise unharmed.
According to the AP, the other journalists released Wednesday are American James Foley, Spanish photographer Manu Brabo, and Nigel Chandler, who’s British.
i really hopes she writes an account of her time in custody, im sure it was hell for her but im really interested in what she went through and what kinds of rights she had (if any). But the real question im wondering is why she put herself in so much danger in the first place ?