CHICAGO – Paul Salopek, a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, was charged with espionage and two other criminal counts in a Sudanese court Saturday, three weeks after he was detained by pro-government forces in the war-torn province of Darfur.

Salopek, 44, who was on a freelance assignment for National Geographic magazine, was arrested with two Chadian citizens, his interpreter and driver. If convicted, they could be imprisoned for years.

Chicago Tribune Editor and Senior Vice President Ann Marie Lipinski called Salopek “one of the most accomplished and admired journalists of our time. He is not a spy.”

“Our fervent hope is that the authorities in Sudan will recognize his innocence and quickly allow Paul to return home to his wife, Linda, and to his colleagues,” Lipinski said. She added: “We are deeply worried about Paul and his well-being and appeal to the government of Sudan to return him safely home.”

Salopek was on a scheduled leave of absence from the Tribune when he and the two Chadians, Suleiman Abakar Moussa, the interpreter, and Idriss Abdulraham Anu, the driver, were detained Aug. 6. All three were officially charged Saturday with espionage, passing information illegally and writing “false news.”

They also face non-criminal immigration charges of entering the country without a visa.

Near the end of a 40-minute hearing, a judge in El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state in western Sudan, granted a defense motion for a continuance and delayed the trial until Sept. 10.

The Tribune learned of the arrests Aug. 18. Since that time, editors at the Tribune and National Geographic have sought the release of the three men, working through political and diplomatic channels in the U.S. and overseas. The Tribune chose to report the arrests after charges were publicly filed Saturday in court.

Chris Johns, National Geographic’s editor in chief, said Salopek was on assignment to write an article on the sub-Saharan African region known as the Sahel.

“He had no agenda other than to fairly and accurately report on the region,” Johns said. “He is a world-recognized journalist of the highest standing, with a deep knowledge and respect for the continent of Africa and its people.”

Salopek has been in telephone contact with his family and with National Geographic and Tribune editors. Last week he was visited by a congressional delegation led by Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn.

“Paul did a very foolish thing coming into the country without a visa and he knows that . . . He knew he made a mistake,” Shays said Saturday.

Foreign correspondents at times enter countries without a journalist’s visa. Shays said the violation should be put in proper context, adding, “it’s not in anybody’s interest – in their or our government – to have this blown out of proportion. This is a reporter doing what reporters do. They don’t have any designs against the government. They’re just reporting what they see.”

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., worked diplomatic channels to try to settle the issue but said he was not surprised by the filing of charges, which he called “preposterous.”

“To argue that (Salopek) is involved in some sort of espionage is totally incredible,” said Durbin, the minority whip in the Senate.

A spokesman for House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., said, “It is our hope that the Sudanese government would immediately dismiss these trumped-up charges and release this reporter.”

The charges come amid increasing signs that diplomatic efforts to resolve the continuing crisis in Darfur may be foundering. Assistant U.S. Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer, who has called the situation in Darfur dire, is leading a mission to Khartoum this week that she hopes will persuade the Sudanese government to accept an expanded United Nations peacekeeping force in the region.

A spokesman for the State Department said the agency had no immediate statement on the case. And aides said Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., who is traveling through Africa, has been in close contact with diplomats working on Salopek’s case. Obama is scheduled to travel next weekend to an area near the Chad-Sudan border.

Diplomats say it is difficult to get a clear read on the case and its possible outcome. The presiding judge in Salopek’s case on Aug. 14 sentenced Slovenian writer and activist Tomo Kriznar to two years in prison on charges of spying and publishing false information. Kriznar admitted entering the country without a visa but denied the spying charge. His attorneys are appealing.

Earlier this month, the same judge ordered the deportation of a 22-year-old American college student who had been detained in Darfur.

Joel Campagna, Mideast program coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists, said the group was “deeply troubled by our colleague’s arrest and the charges brought against him.”

“Paul Salopek is an accomplished and highly respected professional journalist who was simply doing his job,” Campagna said. “We view these charges as a grave threat to press freedom and call on the Sudanese authorities to see to it that they are dismissed and that our colleague is set free.”

Salopek, who has extensive experience reporting from Africa, had been traveling in Chad, near the Sudanese border. When arrested, he was carrying two U.S. passports – a legal practice, common among journalists and other frequent travelers who require multiple visas – and satellite maps of the conflict zone in Darfur, printed from public Web sites. According to sources, Sudanese officials consider the passports and maps evidence of espionage.

National Geographic became concerned when Salopek failed to show up at a long-scheduled appointment Aug. 17. His last contact with his wife had been Aug. 5.

The judge allowed reporters and photographers in the courtroom during Saturday’s hearing, conducted in Arabic. Omer Hassan, a defense attorney for the three men, argued they could not get a fair trial because of prejudicial remarks given to a Sudanese newspaper by the governor of North Darfur. The judge ordered that such remarks stop.

Hassan sought a trial delay of three weeks; the judge ordered a two-week continuance.

Dressed in blue trousers and a plaid, button-down shirt, Salopek responded to questions from the judge asking his name, occupation, residence, marital status and religion.

Salopek’s arrest is one more case in an international trend of charges against journalists. A Beijing court on Friday dismissed a state secrets charge against a researcher for The New York Times but sentenced him to three years in prison on a lesser, unrelated fraud charge.

On the eve of the trial Friday night, Salopek said during a telephone conversation that he was “realistic” about the seriousness of the charges against him and encouraged by the “Herculean efforts” being made on his behalf.

“Let’s keep our chins up,” Salopek said. “We are going in with good hearts.”

Sudanese officials have allowed Salopek to have regular contact with U.S. consular officials while he has been held in El Fasher.

Salopek spent several years as the Tribune’s bureau chief in Johannesburg. His 2001 Pulitzer for International Reporting recognized his work on the continent, including his coverage of the civil war in Congo and the effects of sleeping sickness in Sudan. The Pulitzer board cited Salopek “for his reporting on the political strife and disease epidemics ravaging Africa, witnessed firsthand as he traveled, sometimes by canoe, through rebel-controlled regions of the Congo.”

Salopek reported from Sudan for a 2003 National Geographic story titled “Shattered Sudan: Drilling for Oil, Hoping for Peace.” Sources said Sudanese authorities have singled out that story in their case against Salopek, in part because he described entering rebel-held territory in southern Sudan without official permission.

He also co-wrote a piece from Africa for National Geographic in September 2005, titled “Who Rules the Forest?” examining the effects of war in Central Africa.

Sudan has been racked by civil war for decades. Northern and southern Sudanese leaders signed a peace agreement in January 2005, but that has done nothing to end strife in the western region known as Darfur.

The rebels in Darfur, mostly black African farming tribes, have been fighting the country’s Arab-dominated central government since early 2003. The government has used Arab militias called the janjaweed to attack rebels and ordinary villagers in Darfur, causing 2 million people to flee their homes and leading to the deaths of more than 180,000.

The Sudanese government tightly controls access to the region, more than 500 miles west of Khartoum.

Salopek, a California native, joined the Tribune in 1996 and has covered Africa, the Balkans, Central Asia and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Before his 2001 Pulitzer, he won a Pulitzer in 1998 for explanatory reporting for his coverage of the controversial Human Genome Diversity Project.

Before joining the Tribune, Salopek worked as a writer for National Geographic for three years. Before that, he reported on U.S.-Mexico border issues for the El Paso (Texas) Times. In 1990, he was Gannett News Service’s bureau chief in Mexico City.

Salopek’s most recent work for the Tribune was a July 30 special section called, “A Tank of Gas, a World of Trouble.” Based on Salopek’s reporting from four continents, the report documented the United States’ addiction to oil.