'Freedom!' cries British academic as she leaves Aceh prison

A Scottish-born academic arrested in the troubled Indonesian province of Aceh five months ago was released from prison yesterday and promptly sent a text message to her parents stating: "I'm free!"

Lesley McCulloch, 40, from Dunoon in Argyll, was arrested with an American companion, Joy Sadler, after visiting a separatist rebel camp. Originally charged with spying, the pair were prosecuted for visa violations and jailed by a court in Banda Aceh, the provincial capital, on 30 December.

Ms McCulloch, a lecturer at the University of Tasmania, shouted "Freedom!" as she emerged from jail in Banda Aceh. "It's fantastic to be out. It's been a long five months," she said.

She was planning to fly to Britain via Kuala Lumpur to see her family, before returning to Tasmania. "My mother has been very stressed," she said at Banda Aceh airport while preparing to catch a flight to the Indonesian city of Medan. "But she knows I want to come back. It's in my blood."

Ms McCulloch attracted the notice of Indonesian authorities after writing a series of critical articles about Aceh, a staunchly Muslim province on the northern tip of Sumatra island where rebels have been fighting for independence for 27 years. She pledged yesterday to carry on campaigning against human rights abuses in Aceh, where a peace deal aimed at ending one of the world's longest armed conflicts was signed by the government and rebels in December.

She and Ms Sadler, a nurse aged 57,claimed to have been beaten and deprived of sleep while in police custody, a charge denied by Indonesia. Ms Sadler was released last month.