Heroic US filmmaker and OCD Sufferer Matthew Van Dyke free after six months in Libyan ‘hell’
THE last thing American filmmaker Matthew Van Dyke remembers was filming people in the Libyan city of Brega.
The atmosphere was jovial and relaxed. Someone asked if he wanted a coffee and he said yes. Then everything went blank.The next thing he knew he was in one of Muammar Gaddafi’s notorious prisons, hearing someone being tortured in a nearby cell. Van Dyke spent six months in solitary confinement hell until the rebels’ push into Tripoli caused the prison guards to flee, enabling him to escape. Even before the imprisonment, Van Dyke suffered from obsessive compulsive disorder, which he says was made worse by imprisonment.
Despite his ordeal, Van Dyke plans to stay in the country until “Libya is free”.
“I made that commitment to the rebels and I (will) keep it.’
