US forces free French Canal + crew

The US Army released three journalists from privately-owned French TV Canal + along with their driver on 19 May after detaining them in the Iraqi capital for around 29 hours. They were arrested by the military on the evening of 18 May while filming close to the Baghdad Hotel. Luc Hermann, presenter of the programme "90 minutes", for which the crew was working, said that the US Army had "apologised profusely" and "treated them to a meal in a restaurant". During their detention, French journalists Michel Despratx, Stéphane Rossi, and Mohammed Ballout and their Iraqi driver Sarmad Adel, were on several occasions handcuffed and blindfolded. ------------------------------------------- 18 May 2004 - Three journalists of privately-owned French TV Canal + held by US Army in Iraq Reporters Without Borders demands their immediate release Reporters Without Borders called for the immediate release of three French journalists working for the privately-owned French TV Canal +, held by the US Army in Baghdad after being arrested on 18 May. "Our crew of journalists has been held for almost 24 hours," said Paul Moreira, co-producer of Canal + programme "90 minutes". "It is all the more baffling and intolerable since the channel confirmed the identity of our three colleagues at 8am and they were carrying their press cards. "We have had enough of these methods. The US Army's attitude towards journalists is frankly disrespectful and unacceptable," he said. French cameraman Stéphane Rossi, French reporter of Lebanese origin Mohammed Ballout and French reporter Michel Despratx, were arrested on 18 May, apparently in the evening as they were filming at the Hotel Baghdad, which is under heavy guard by coalition forces. They had been in the country for a week preparing a report for the investigative programme "90 minutes". Around three weeks ago, US soldiers arrested another journalist working for the same channel, Grégoire Deniau, as he was leaving Falluja, east of Baghdad. They blindfolded him and left him for two hours on wasteland in hot sun before releasing him. The Canal + journalist was working on a report for the programme "Monday investigation".