Reuters: “American journalist Danny Fenster said he was healthy and happy to be heading home after being freed from prison in Myanmar and flying to Qatar on Monday, following negotiations between former U.S. diplomat Bill Richardson and the ruling military junta. Fenster, 37, the managing editor of independent online magazine Frontier Myanmar, looked frail on arrival at Hamad International Airport in Doha but said he had not been beaten while in captivity.
“‘I feel great and am really happy to be on my way home. I’m incredibly happy for everything Bill has done,’ he told reporters on the tarmac, referring to Richardson’s intervention. ‘You just go a little stir crazy and the longer it drags on the more worried you are that it’s just never going to end. That was the biggest concern, staying sane through that.’
“Asked if he had been mistreated, he said: ‘I was arrested and held in captivity for no reason, so I suppose so. But physically, I was healthy. I wasn’t starved or beaten.’ Fenster was sentenced to 11 years in prison on Friday for incitement and violations of laws on immigration and unlawful assembly, a ruling that drew international condemnation.”