Our war reporter John Ray was sent to Libya in 2011 to cover the dramatic fall of Muammar Gaddafi during the Arab Spring and report on the Libya conflict from the front line.
Instead, he became captured himself — held hostage by the Libyan dictator’s regime forces in the Rixos Hotel in Tripoli – before making a daring escape.
For the first time, John revisits his death-defying war reporting alongside rebel forces on the road to the Libyan capital, watching back intense combat footage and describing his hellish hostage experience and how he and his team eventually fled their armed captors.
Reporting History sees journalists join News At Ten anchor Tom Bradby to revisit their remarkable reports from the defining events of the modern age and reveal the drama that occurred off camera, from war reporting and conflict journalism to historic global events.
This episode explores:
The fall of Gaddafi in Libya (2011)
The Arab Spring conflict
Frontline war reporting in Tripoli
Intense combat and rebel advances
The Rixos Hotel hostage crisis
The reality of conflict journalism
0:00 Intro
0:47 Entering Libya’s Civil War
6:28 Things Go Wrong
8:23 Getting to Tripoli
12:45 Drive to the Hotel
14:48 Taken Hostage
17:22 First Escape Attempt
24:06 Second Escape Attempt
30:42 Fall of Gaddafi
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