‘We thought we were going to be killed’

THE freed British journalist who was held by Iraq on suspicion of spying, yesterday told how he had feared for his life.

Matthew McAllester, 33, was released yesterday after a week in a Baghdad prison with his colleague, Spanish photographer Moises Saman.

“We thought we were going to be killed at any moment,” he told the New York-based newspaper Newsday for which he works.

Iraqi intelligence officials seized the pair from their Baghdad hotel room on March 24.

They were handcuffed and taken to Abu Ghraib prison just outside the capital, the largest jail in the Arab world.

Mr McAllester said he was interrogated several times by up to 12 Iraqi officials who refused to believe he was a journalist.

Interrogators attempted to make him sign a statement in Arabic but he refused and instead wrote one in English explaining he was not sent by the CIA or on any mission.

The journalists were held in a small, separate cells and were not allowed to speak to each other. Mr McAllester said while he was never mistreated, he frequently heard the screams of other prisoners being attacked by interrogators.

“There were beatings and torture going on outside our cells, in the corridor.”

Many inmates hobbled around because the soles of their feet had been burned, while others had bloodied and swollen faces, he said.

The journalists were released yesterday and driven to Jordan by Iraqi authorities, where they contacted their relieved families.

Mr McAllester has worked for Newsday for nine years and had previously written for Scotland on Sunday.

He was born in London but grew up in Edinburgh’s West End. After attending Edinburgh Academy he went to Sussex University to read English.