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Last week, Associated Press photographer (and alleged insurgent collaborator) Bilal Hussein was released from custody after an Iraqi tribunal decided his case fell under an amnesty law passed earlier in 2008. The United States military had accused Hussein of working with insurgent groups in Anbar Province, in part because of his uncanny ability repeatedly to photograph insurgents in action. I don’t know if he’s guilty or not, and he deserves the presumption of innocence. Either way, his case brings attention to an issue most consumers of news from Iraq rarely consider: the fact that large media companies--the Associated Press and...

BAGHDAD, (AP) -- The U.S. military released Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein on Wednesday after holding him for more than two years without filing formal charges. Hussein, 36, was handed over to AP colleagues at a checkpoint in Baghdad. He was taken to the site aboard a prisoner bus and left U.S. custody wearing a traditional Iraqi robe. He was smiling and appeared in good health. "I want to thank all the people working in AP. ... I have spent two years in prison even though I was innocent. I thank everybody," Hussein said after being freed. AP President Tom...

WASHINGTON, April 15, 2008 – Coalition military officials in Baghdad have informed attorneys for Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein Zaidon that they intend to release Hussein from custody tomorrow. After confirming that the main charges for which Hussein was scheduled to be tried had been determined by Iraqi judicial committees to be covered by Iraq’s new amnesty law, Army Maj. Gen. Douglas M. Stone, Multinational Force Iraq’s deputy commanding general for detainee operations, signed the order approving his release. Hussein has been in coalition custody since April 2006. “After the action by the Iraqi judicial committees, we reviewed the circumstances...

An Iraqi news photographer who has been held for more than two years on suspicion of aiding insurgents will be freed this week following an amnesty ordered by Iraqi authorities, the US military said Monday. Bilal Hussein, a photographer with the Associated Press, will be released from US military custody on Wednesday, the US military command in Baghdad said in a statement. "After the action by the Iraqi judicial committees, we reviewed the circumstances of Hussein's detention and determined that he no longer presents an imperative threat to security," said Major General Douglas Stone, the deputy commander for detainee operations....

BAGHDAD, (AP) -- The U.S. military says it will release Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein after more than two years in custody. The statement said Hussein will be freed Wednesday now that Iraqi judicial committees have granted him amnesty for all allegations. Hussein has been in custody since April 12, 2006 when he was detained by U.S. Marines for alleged links to insurgents.

An Iraqi judicial committee has ordered the release of an Associated Press photographer held by the U.S. military in Iraq for two years and dismissed terrorism-related accusations against him, the news agency said on Wednesday. The U.S. military has accused Bilal Hussein, an Iraqi, of working with insurgents in Iraq. He was seized in April 2006 in Ramadi, capital of western Anbar province, and has been imprisoned without charge ever since. The AP reported that a four-judge panel in Baghdad ruled that Hussein's case falls under a new amnesty law and ordered Iraqi courts to "cease legal proceedings." The ruling...

NEW YORK Can Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein possibly get a fair trial in Iraq? Scott Horton of Harper's magazine is the latest to look at the purported evidence, and fairness of his trial -- he is accused of aiding insurgents and was held without charges for well over a year -- in an article now at www.harper's.org. "Iraq’s equivalent of the Zenger case is being conducted now before an Iraqi investigating judge," Horton writes. "In the dock sits the Pulitzer Prize-winning Associated Press photojournalist Bilal Hussein. The prosecution is brought by the American Pentagon, under a Secretary of Defense...

AP photographer Bilal Hussein was on the radar screen of US forces prior to his being detained in a chance encounter April 12, 2006. He was a stringer working in Fallujah who filed numerous reports and photos that seemed to need a high degree of cooperation from the terrorists. He has been in custody for 19 months and will soon face trial by the Iraqi government on charges related to his activities with Sunni insurgents in Fallujah and Ramadi. Evidence against him is expected to be given to the Iraqi government this week. Geoff Morrell, Pentagon Press Secretary had this...

NEW YORK (AP) - The U.S. military's plan to seek a criminal case against an Associated Press photographer in Iraq without disclosing the charges or evidence against him makes a mockery of American democratic principles, AP President and CEO Tom Curley said Saturday. "This is a poor example—and not the first of its kind—of the way our government honors the democratic principles and values it says it wants to share with the Iraqi people," Curley said in a column in The Washington Post. The U.S. military notified the AP last weekend that it intended to submit a complaint against Bilal...

At long last, prize-winning Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein may get his day in court. The trouble is, justice won't be blind in this case -- his lawyer will be. Bilal has been imprisoned by the U.S. military in Iraq since he was picked up April 12, 2006, in Ramadi, a violent town in a turbulent province where few Western journalists dared go. The military claimed then that he had suspicious links to insurgents. This week, Editor & Publisher magazine reported the military has amended that to say he is, in fact, a "terrorist" who had "infiltrated the AP." We...

Media: An Associated Press photographer is about to be handed over to an Iraqi court on terrorism charges. The media are howling persecution. But what's so improbable about a terrorist trying to infiltrate the U.S. media?That's why the case of Bilal Hussein ought to be looked at more seriously than the "how dare you" denials the AP and its pals at press-freedom watchdogs are putting out. The AP photographer, who took enough close-up shots of al-Qaida in combat to help win a Pulitzer Prize for AP in 2005, somehow never found the same kind of danger Wall Street Journal reporter...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The U.S. military says it has "convincing and irrefutable" evidence that an award-winning Associated Press photographer is connected to the insurgency in Iraq. The photographer, Bilal Hussein Zaidon, faces charges in the Iraqi Central Court based on the evidence, Pentagon officials said Monday. Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell and other U.S. military officials would not say directly what charges he faced. They referred reporters to the Iraqi court system.

WASHINGTON (AFP) — The US military has filed a formal complaint with an Iraqi criminal court accusing a detained, award-winning Associated Press photographer of being a "terrorist media operative," the Pentagon said Monday. Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary, said the military made the complaint about Bilal Hussein, who has been held for more than 19 months without charges in US military custody, to Iraq's Central Criminal Court. "We believe Bilal Hussein was a terrorist media operative who infiltrated the AP," he said. "MNF-I possesses convincing and irrefutable evidence that Bilal Hussein is a threat to security and stability as...

NEW YORK - The U.S. military plans to seek a criminal case in an Iraqi court against an award-winning Associated Press photographer but is refusing to disclose what evidence or accusations would be presented. An AP attorney on Monday strongly protested the decision, calling the U.S. military plans a "sham of due process." The journalist, Bilal Hussein, has already been imprisoned without charges for more than 19 months. In Washington, Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell explained the decision to bring charges now by saying "new evidence has come to light" about Hussein, but said the information would remain in government...

NEW YORK (AP) - The U.S. military plans to seek a criminal case in an Iraqi court against an award-winning Associated Press photographer but is refusing to disclose what evidence or accusations would be presented. An AP attorney on Monday strongly protested the decision, calling the U.S. military plans a "sham of due process." The journalist, Bilal Hussein, has already been imprisoned without charges for more than 19 months. A public affairs officer notified the AP on Sunday that the military intends to submit a written complaint against Hussein that would bring the case into the Iraqi justice system as...

The Associated Press used to be a highly respected wire service, and most American newspapers still subscribe to its services. Its extreme left-wing agenda, however, has so polluted its objectiveness that its news reports have become laughable; that is, they would be laughable if the daily damage the AP does to the truth was not so extreme. Many Americans were not even aware of the extent of the problem until this past summer when the AP began a flood of bogus reports portraying the Israelis as monsters and the Hezbollah as misunderstood heroes.

A Democratic congresswoman on Wednesday cited the case of an Iraqi Associated Press photographer imprisoned by the U.S. military during debate on a prisoner treatment bill that she considers too harsh. In a House speech, Rep. Louise Slaughter referred to Bilal Hussein, who has been detained in Iraq for more than five months. "He was accused of aiding and abetting the insurgency, but he has yet to be charged with any crime," said Slaughter, D-N.Y. She noted that the AP has demanded that Hussein either be released or charged so that he can be turned over to the Iraqi court...

What do you do when you are a global news organization under fire for suppressing five-month-old news of the capture of one of your employees by American troops in a Ramadi apartment with an alleged al Qaeda leader and a weapons cache? You run to a sympathetic news organization to help you whitewash the story and smear the U.S. military. Naturally. On Saturday, the Washington Post op-ed page published a shameless CYA screed by Associated (with terrorists) Press president and chief executive Tom Curley on the Bilal Hussein case. The inanity begins with the very first paragraph of the piece...

Arrested Pulitzer Prize winning Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein, who took the infamous pictures of a terrorist execution on Haifa Street in Baghdad, and is notorious in the blogosphere for his collusion with jihadis as they tried to kill Americans, is the subject of a very lengthy attempt by the AP to whitewash his acts: U.S. holds AP photographer in Iraq 5 mos. (Hat tip: Michelle Malkin.) The AP spins furiously and buries it in the middle, but here’s some interesting information from the US Army: The military said Hussein was captured with two insurgents, including Hamid Hamad Motib, an...

The U.S. military in Iraq has imprisoned an Associated Press photographer for five months, accusing him of being a security threat but never filing charges or permitting a public hearing. Military officials said Bilal Hussein, an Iraqi citizen, was being held for "imperative reasons of security" under United Nations resolutions. AP executives said the news cooperative's review of Hussein's work did not find anything to indicate inappropriate contact with insurgents, and any evidence against him should be brought to the Iraqi criminal justice system. Hussein, 35, is a native of Fallujah who began work for the AP in September 2004....