With Muammar Gaddafi effectively out of power, so is his State TV. As we showed you yesterday, one of the last stands of one of his news anchors was to brandish a handgun on the air and tell the audience she was prepared to be a martyr. Her show’s been canceled. And thanks to Washington Post reporter Thomas Erdbrink who is stationed in Libya, we know what happened to Hala Misrati. Here’s what Erdbrink told Rachel Maddow tonight on her show:
I witnessed her, actually, being brought — she was brought into a compound where they brought other journalists in to see her. This woman, Hala Misrati, the same woman brandishing that gun was there, and we could hear her scream, “I am innocent [inaudible].” Then we heard a loud man’s voice saying … accusing her basically that she was a traitor. And then afterwards — we were not allowed to see her — but the rebel commander came out saying she was in good hands and sees the errors of her ways.