Editor’s Note: We had tweeted earlier that VanDyke graduated in 2008. He actually graduated in 2004.

After Libyan rebels captured Tripoli late Tuesday, Securities Studies alum Matthew VanDyke (GRD ’04) escaped from the prison where Gadhafi’s government had held him in solitary confinement for about six months, the Balitmore Sun reported yesterday.

VanDyke, a freelance journalist, had gone to Libya in early March to cover the overthrow over the Gadhafi regime. He went missing sometime around March 12. This Wednesday, he contacted mother Sharon VanDyke and girlfriend Lauren Fischer from a borrowed cell phone.

“He sounded fine other than he said he thought maybe he lost his voice because he didn’t have anybody to talk to for six months,” VanDyke’s mother told the Sun.

Over the last several months, family members and government officials, including Representative C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.), have been working to bring the South Baltimore native home.

While at Georgetown, VanDyke wrote a political column for the Hoya.

h/t Baltimore Sun, Photo by B.R.Q

Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.) informed the Baltimore Sun on Tuesday that Gadhafi supporters in Libya were holding Securities Studies alum Matthew VanDyke (GRD ’04).

VanDyke had gone to Libya in early March to “witness history” as a freelance journalist, his mother Sharon VanDyke told the Sun in April. Her son went missing sometime around March 12, the last day she had contact with him.

The next day a GPS locator put him somewhere near the eastern city of Brega. Unnamed sources informed Ms. VanDyke in July that her son was being held in Tripoli.

According to a report in the Huffington Post, VanDyke traveled throughout the Middle East and North Africa in 2009. There he met photographer Daniel C. Britt, and the pair decided to make a travelogue about their 2010 motorcycle trip through Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan. The report VanDyke would send back from Libya was meant to be a capstone for this film.

During his time at Georgetown, VanDyke wrote a column for the Hoya and hosted a radio show on WGTB, according to a May article in the Hoya. In his columns, VanDyke criticized then-President George W. Bush and weighed in on an array of topics from same-sex marriage to the Iraq War.

h/t Baltimore Sun, Photo by B.R.Q