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Gambia News: Amnesty employees cleared of spying, allowed to leave Gambia

Gambian police spokesman Sulayman Secka said authorities had returned the two activists' passports. "The matter has been now resolved," Secka said.

Amnesty researcher Tania Bernath, who holds dual U.S. and British citizenship, and Amnesty's West Africa campaigner Ayodele Ameen, a native of Nigerian, were detained on Saturday.

Along with a local reporter, they were accused of being spies after they visited a Gambian opposition member who has been in jail for 13 months.

Holding her passport, Bernath said Friday: "I am happy that we have been released. I am going back to London today." She and Ameen were scheduled to leave the country on a flight Friday afternoon.

They were initially released Monday, but were not given their passports and were instructed to report to the police Tuesday morning. For five days, their status in Gambia remained unclear, with the government neither charging them with spying nor clearing them of any wrongdoing.

"After having completed their investigation, the police released them unconditionally. Nothing was found on them," said Marie Tambadou, one of the lawyers representing the Amnesty delegates.

The two had entered the country a week earlier and informed Gambian authorities of the purpose of their trip, which was to assess human rights conditions, Amnesty spokeswoman Eliane Drakopoulos said in a telephone interview from London.

Gambia, a tiny sliver of land in West Africa surrounded on three sides by Senegal, is ruled by President Yahya Jammeh, who grabbed power in a 1994 coup and who has become increasingly isolated and intolerant of criticism.

Recently, a U.N. official was declared a "persona non grata" in Gambia and ordered to leave the country after she criticized Jammeh's claim of having cured AIDS. Jammeh declared in January that he had discovered a cure for AIDS and began treating patients inside the presidential palace, using herbs and incantations.