Gov. Bill Richardson successfully secured the release today of Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Paul Salopek and two colleagues following a meeting with Sudanese President Lt. General Umar Hassan Ahmad Al-Bashir.
“I am pleased to report that our negotiations were successful, and Paul Salopek will return home to New Mexico with me,” Richardson said in a news release. “I want to thank the Sudanese President Lt. General Umar Hassan Ahmad Al-Bashir, who was receptive to my request to release Paul Salopek and his colleagues based on humanitarian grounds.”
“The successful end to this unfortunate episode is a victory for journalism and a free press,” Richardson said. “Most important, these three men will return home safely to be with their families, friends and colleagues who were relentless in their appeals to have them freed.”
Richardson traveled with Calvin Humphrey, his foreign policy advisor, to Khartoum, Sudan on Friday, where he met with the Sudanese President Lt. General Umar Hassan Ahmad Al-Bashir. He also took with him Salopek’s wife and the editor of the Chicago Tribune.
Salopek was detained on Aug. 6 along with two Chadian citizens, Suleiman Abakar Moussa, Salopeks’s interpreter, and his driver, Abdulraham Anu. All three were charged with espionage, passing information illegally, and writing “false news.” Salopek, who lives in Columbus, N.M., is on leave from his job as foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune on a freelance assignment for National Geographic magazine.
Gov. Bill Richardson successfully secured the release today of Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Paul Salopek and two colleagues following a meeting with Sudanese President Lt. General Umar Hassan Ahmad Al-Bashir. 
“I am pleased to report that our negotiations were successful, and Paul Salopek will return home to