Military: AP Photog Linked to Insurgents

New evidence surfaces implicating journalist held since 2006

By Katherine Thompson, Newser Staff

Posted Nov 20, 2007 6:18 AM CST

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Military: AP Photog Linked to Insurgents — An Iraqi family is searched near a U.S. checkpoint in Ramadi, Iraq in this Tuesday, Feb. 22, 2005 file photo taken by Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein. The U.S. military plans to seek a criminal case in an Iraqi court against Hussein, who has already been imprisoned without charges for more... (Associated Press)

The US military says it has evidence that an Iraqi photographer who works for AP is connected with the anti-American insurgency, CNN reports. Bilal Hussein Zaidon has been in custody since April 2006 and will face trial in the Iraqi court system. The Pentagon did not specify the charges but said "additional evidence had come to light that the man was a media operative who had infiltrated the Associated Press."

AP chief Tom Curley called for the government to release Hussein, saying his rights to due process and a fair trial are being "ignored and even abused." Hussein, who earned a Pulitzer Prize with the AP in 2005, roused suspicion for arriving at terrorist attack sites so quickly that he was thought to have advance warning. Authorities found bomb parts and propaganda in his house. (More Bilal Hussein Zaidon stories.)

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