Johan Spanner, aged 28, told the paper Iraqi forces had arrested him along with four other foreigners, and alleged he was spying for the US Central Intelligence Agency as well as the Pentagon.

All five -- Spanner did not say who the other four people were -- were placed in isolation for six days, some 30 to 40 kilometers (18-25 miles) from Baghdad. On Tuesday, they were driven to the Iraqi-Jordanian border and released.

"I doubted very much I would get out alive. One of the chief Iraqi investigators made the gesture of a gun pointed at my temple with his hand each time he passed me," he told the paper.

"We were occasionally questioned with blindfolds over our eyes, but no one hit us during our incarceration, and not a single official charge was filed against us," he said.

Spanner went to Iraq on a tourist visa accompanied by several so-called human shields, individuals aiming to station themselves at crucial locations around Iraq to prevent them from being bombed. Iraqi officials had repeatedly denied his request for a professional journalist visa.

SPACE.WIRE