Serbs Free American Journalist

An American reporter held by Bosnian Serb rebels for nearly two weeks was freed Wednesday, in what Serb leader Radovan Karadzic called a goodwill gesture to help peace talks.

David Rohde of the Christian Science Monitor was turned over to U.S. Embassy officials in Belgrade by Serb security officers who mediated his release.

“I feel very relieved and very happy to be out, and I’m grateful to the Serbian security corps for getting me out,” Rohde told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

In a statement earlier Wednesday to The Associated Press, Karadzic said Rohde was “cleared of all charges” and would be released “as a sign of goodwill and contribution to the peace talks.”

Rohde, the Monitor’s Eastern Europe correspondent based in Zagreb, Croatia, disappeared after contacting his editors Oct. 28. He had written articles about human rights violations by Serbs against Muslims in the Bosnian city of Srebrenica.

He was freed from a jail in the Serb-held town of Bijeljina in northeastern Bosnia.