Libya frees AFP, Getty journalists

AFP chairman Emmanuel Hoog on Tuesday appealed to Kadhafi to free the three, who were seized by Libyan troops near the eastern city of Ajdabiya on Saturday.

A driver hired by Dave Clark and Roberto Schmidt, who went missing in eastern Libya last week, said they were arrested on Saturday along with Getty photographer Joe Raedle.

Clark, a reporter, and photographer Schmidt had not been heard from since Friday evening.

Driver Mohammed Hamed told AFP that on Saturday morning he took Briton Clark, Schmidt, who is of joint Colombian and German nationality, and American Raedle from Tobruk towards Ajdabiya, where Kadhafi loyalists have been battling eastern rebels.

A few dozen kilometres (miles) from Ajdabiya they encountered a convoy of military jeeps and transport vehicles.

They turned around, but were intercepted by the soldiers who caught up with them and forcibly detained them, the driver said.

Four soldiers forced them from their vehicle at gunpoint as Clark said "Sahafa, sahafa," Arabic for journalist.

They were then ordered to kneel on the side of the road with their hands on their heads before being bundled into another vehicle and driven off to an unknown destination.

Paris-based Clark, 38, has been in Libya since March 8. Schmidt, 45, who normally works out of AFP\'s Nairobi bureau, arrived in the country on February 28. Raedle is 45 years old.

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