Mobile UPI  |   About UPI  |   UPI en Español  |   UPI Arabic  |   UPIU  |   My Account
Search:
Go

Johnston back in U.K. with a fresh shave

|
|
 
  
Published: July 7, 2007 at 3:01 PM

LONDON, July 7 (UPI) -- BBC journalist Alan Johnston arrived safely in the United Kingdom Saturday after being held hostage in Gaza for 114 days by a radical Islamic group.

The BBC said Johnston, 45, touched down at London's Heathrow Airport about midnight aboard a flight from Tel Aviv and was to continue on to Scotland to be reunited with his family later in the day.

The plucky reporter, who had been held in chains, roughed up and made sick by the bad food served while in captivity, said the first thing he did after his release was to visit a barbershop for a shave to "get rid of that just-kidnapped look."

Rallies were held around the world calling for Johnston's release; there also was an online petition signed by about 200,000 Internet users. Johnston told his colleagues at the BBC he was "comforted by efforts to free" him, which he was well aware of since he was able to listen to the network on a radio during much of his confinement.

Topics: Alan Johnston
© 2007 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI's prior written consent.

Order reprints
  
Join the conversation
Most Popular Collections
Notable deaths of 2012 Scripps National Spelling Bee AmfAR Cinema Against AIDS gala
Indianapolis 500 Presidential Medal of Freedom Memorial Day around the nation
Additional Top News Stories
1 of 27
Snigdha Nandipati of San Diego wins Finals of the Scripps National Spelling Bee
View Caption
Snigdha Nandipati of San Diego, California watches confetti rain down as she wins the two-day Scripps National Spelling Bee championship, May 31, 2012, in National Harbor, Maryland. Nandipati successfully spelled the word .* guetapens *, meaning to lure or ambush. UPI/Mike Theiler
fark
Man killed in Spencer fire. The lava lamps must have ignited the blacklight posters
Passenger jet crashes into apartment building in Nigerian capitol. Over 150 princes, bank officials,...
I'll see your zombie apocalypse, and raise you "swarms of deadly spiders" invading a town in India...
Photoshop this woman at the wheel
New book is full of girls in their bedrooms, will be read by people who need to have a seat right...
★☆☆☆☆ Michigan is an uninhabitable swamp. Do not settle