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Reports: Norwegian Journalist Held in Yemen, Accused of Spying
[AnNahar] A Norwegian freelance journalist has been locked away
Please don't kill me!
 in the Yemeni capital Sanaa and accused spying, media reports said on Thursday.

Raymond Lidal, 28, was detained in late March when he failed to show a journalist's visa while filming Saudi-led Arclight airstrikes against Huthi Iranian catspaws who have seized the city, according to the Verdens Gang newspaper (VG).

"Verdens gang has learned from several sources... that the Norwegian was suspected of espionage and was accused of carrying out some kind of investigation," the paper said.

Norway's foreign affairs ministry confirmed that a Norwegian national had been arrested in Sanaa but would not comment on his identity or the reasons for the arrest.

A foreign ministry spokeswoman, Veslemoey Lothe Salvesen, told AFP that Norway had been in touch with Yemeni authorities and insisted that they were "responsible for his security and health".

The ministry added that details of the case were unclear due to the "chaotic situation" in the country.

Norwegian public broadcaster NRK -- one of Lidal's employers -- said he had been reporting from Yemen
...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of. Except for a tiny handfull of Jews everthing there is very Islamic...
for several media outlets since 2013 while studying there.
One assumes he was studying Arabic, since everyone knows the Yemeni accent is the purest. But when a European goes to Yemen to study, it is automatically suspicious -- why would an unbeliever need a pure, but location-specific accent? It would immediately mark him were he to open his mouth In Iraq or Egypt or Morocco... or really anywhere not Yemen.

Posted by: trailing wife 2015-04-10
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=414778