RELEASED FILM CREW TELL OF TERRIFYING ORDEAL

THE CHANNEL Four film crew released from prison in Liberia after apologising to President Charles Taylor have been telling of their terrifying ordeal in a Liberian prison.
David Barrie, Tim Lambon, Sorious Samura and Gugulakhe Radebe, were arrested while making a three-part documentary. They were charged with espionage by the Liberian government, after a script was found in their hotel.
Taylor told CNN the arrests were, “not a check to the free press. We were dealing with a case of conspiracy with a clear case of libel here, which would have damaged this country.”
He said the journalists had already decided on their story before arriving in Liberia, and aimed simply to “fill in the blanks”
Three members of the film crew spoke of their “terrifying ordeal” at a news conference on their arrival at London’s Heathrow Airport. Sierra Leonean journalist Sorious Samura, meanwhile, described how prison officers threatened to “split his heart open with a knife”.
The journalists, British director David Barrie, Zimbabwe-born cameraman Tim Lambon, who has dual South African and British nationality, Sierra Leonean journalist Mr Samura, and South African soundman Gugulakhe Radebe, told how they were bundled into trucks by 20 police brandishing rifles during their arrest and then locked up in police cells.
TV presenter, Samura, described how men in black started beating and pushing the crew out into the street in the dark, whilst cameraman Tim Lambon, said that it was a situation of “serious mental terror”.
Samura, was threatened with a knife after being moved to a solitary cell the size of a “broom cupboard” while the others were held in a “stifling hot cell with no ventilation” at the National Security Agency jail.
Speaking at press conference at Heathrow airport, he said: “Every time anyone touched my door I thought that was the end.”
Director David Barrie, denied they went out there determined to undermine the regime. Barrie, who did not withdraw his apology to President Taylor, said: “We went there to do a job, we meant no offence. We went in there to try and understand the country.”
Charges against the group, who were making a documentary on African conflicts through the eyes of award-winning journalist Samura, were dropped yesterday after a high-profile campaign for their release.
Liberian President Charles Taylor has stressed the men had not been pardoned, but he decided to free them after a deal was struck between government lawyers and the journalists' representatives. The men, who were arrested last Friday, had been facing a possible death penalty.
A joint statement issued under the journalists' names read: "We, the four journalists currently held in Monrovia Central Prison, wish to express our unreserved apology to both His Excellency the President of Liberia and the people of Liberia for any offence which our actions or statements have caused.”
Channel 4's chairman Vanni Treves also sent a letter of apology to President Taylor, the contents of which have not been released.
Charles Taylor claimed there was an international conspiracy, which the documentary would have fuelled, to destroy Liberia by implicating it in gun-running and diamond-smuggling.
He said that if broadcast the allegations would have been sufficient to trigger international sanctions or military action by the US and UK against Liberia.
The crew were all working for London-based independent production company Insight News.