Released Spanish journalists arrive in Madrid, give account of ordeal

The three Spanish reporters who were released this weekend after being held in Syria for 10 months said they were not harmed during their captivity.

Antonio Pampliega, José Manuel López and Ángel Sastre arrived at the military base of Torrejón de Ardoz in Madrid on Sunday morning. All three appeared to be in good health, but will undergo extensive medical checkups.

Acting Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría was on hand to greet them as the Falcon 900 aircraft completed its flight from Hatay, in southwest Turkey.

His voice was the same as always, and he kept apologizing for what he had put me through

Antonio Pampliega's mother

Acting Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy tweeted the message “Welcome!” with a photograph of the three men walking out of the military aircraft in Madrid.

Also on hand at Torrejón was General Félix Sanz, head of the National Intelligence Center (CNI), who oversaw the negotiations for the reporters’ release.

King Felipe VI telephoned the men to congratulate them on their newly found freedom.

Not far from Aleppo

In a short statement to the EFE news agency, the freelance journalists said that their kidnappers treated them humanely, and that they did not know exactly where they were held during their 10-month captivity.

Government sources believe they were never too far from Aleppo, the Syrian city where they were kidnapped in July of last year by the Al-Nusra Front, the Syrian affiliate of Al Qaeda.

José Manuel López said that all three were held together for the first three months; Pampliega was then taken away and his two colleagues never heard from him again until Saturday, when all three were released.

The men were held in six different hideouts, and only occasionally allowed outside to walk in a courtyard. They said that they worked out in order to stay fit and keep boredom at bay.

News of their release broke late on Saturday, when all three were already in a safe area in Turkey.

“When I talked to him on the phone, it was wonderful,” said María del Mar Rodríguez Vega, Antonio Pampliega’s mother, in statements to Reporters Without Borders, the organization that all three are members of.

“His voice was the same as always, and he kept apologizing for what he had put me through,” she added.

Pampliega, Sastre and the photojournalist López went missing in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on July 12, 2015. All three were freelancing for several news organizations, including EL PAÍS. They had prior experience covering war zones.

A long release

The release lasted over three hours, from 5 to 8.30pm local time on Saturday. The prisoners were let go in a rugged spot on the border with the Turkish province of Hatay, around 50 kilometers from Aleppo.

Standing on one side of the border were the Al-Nusra Front kidnappers with their hostages; on the other, Turkish military personnel as well as Spanish Foreign Ministry and CNI officers. Local intermediaries were in charge of crossing the 30 meters of no man’s land lying in between, to carry messages from one side to the other under a pouring rain.

The Spanish officers first checked that the men being offered to them were really the Spanish reporters, and talked to them on a cellphone to ask personal questions that their families had prepared. Once their identities were confirmed, they crossed the border one at a time, escorted by the intermediaries.

The process was delayed by the jihadists, who checked every detail before releasing each of the men. Night had fallen by the time all three reporters were on Turkish territory. At that point, the Spanish officers called Madrid to communicate the good news.

EL PAÍS has learned that the journalists ate the same food as their captors, who wore hoods most of the time. The only person they saw clearly was an imam who made a futile effort to convert them to Islam.

The reporters explained that they heard faraway explosions – a result of Russian and Syrian air raids over Aleppo – but never close to their area. They said they believe there were other hostages in the same building as themselves, although they never saw any.

Their release relieved one of their families’ ultimate fears: that they would be sold to the Islamic State.

English version by Susana Urra.