OWN CORRESPONDENT and REUTERS, Johannesburg | Tuesday
BRITAIN has warned Liberian authorities that their detention of four television journalists – including South African Gugu Radebe – on spying charges has put the west African state on a collision course with the international community.
Foreign Office minister Peter Hain called for the immediate release of the crew, who were charged with espionage. The four were working on a documentary for Britain’s Channel Four network.
“They are not spies, they are journalists, and this is an attack on international press freedom,” he told BBC radio.
Radebe, Sierra Leonean Sorious Samura and Britons David Barrie and Timothy John Lambon have been remanded in custody at Monrovia Central Prison after being charged with “criminal design, having begun to prepare damaging and injurious documentary on Liberia”.
“It brings the Liberian government into collision course not just with the United Nations, which it already is over sanctions busting and support for the rebel forces in Sierra Leone, but now also against the whole international climate, which favours press freedom,” said Hain.
Earlier, former South African president Nelson Mandela had asked Liberian President Charles Taylor to explain why the journalists had been formally charged with espionage, which can carry the death penalty.
However, legal sources in Liberia say the four, who arrived in the country on August 1, face up to 10 years in jail if convicted.
The journalists are accused of having written a “false documentary” to be used by the diplomatic community, especially Britain and the United States to support allegations that Liberia was involved in diamond trading and gun-running in Sierra Leone.
The four had portrayed Liberian President Taylor as a murderer in a pre-prepared script, it added.
Channel Four said lawyers appointed by it to represent the men had not been in court when the charges were formally laid, but would be attempting to secure bail.