JOURNALIST Alan Johnston is to be awarded an honorary degree by his former university, it was announced yesterday.
The BBC correspondent was held hostage in Gaza for nearly four months last year.
He will be honoured by the University of Dundee at the graduation ceremony for the College of Arts and Social Sciences on 18 June.
Lord Turnbull, a High Court jud
ge, will also be presented with an honorary degree at a ceremony the next day.
Mr Johnston, 46, joined the BBC in 1991, and has reported from volatile areas, including Afghanistan and the Gaza Strip.
He was posted to Gaza for three years from April 2004 and was kidnapped just two weeks before his contract was due to end.
Armed gunmen from the shadowy Army of Islam group snatched him on 12 March last year as he returned home to his flat in the area.
More than 200,000 people signed an online petition calling for Mr Johnston's safe return, and there were also demonstrations from residents in the troubled territory of Gaza. He was held captive for 114 days in Gaza and was released on 4 July, 2007.
Mr Johnston graduated from the University of Dundee in 1985 with an MA Hons in English and Politics.
He and Lord Turnbull will both be made Doctor of Laws by the university next month.
Lord Turnbull was appointed a judge of the Court of Session and High Court of Justiciary in February 2006, becoming Scotland's youngest judge at the age of 47.
He had previously been engaged as principal advocate depute, Scotland's top prosecutor, and worked on some of the country's most notorious and difficult criminal cases, including those of William Beggs, Luke Mitchell and Nat Fraser.
Lord Turnbull gained his law degree at the University of Dundee in 1979.
The full article contains 310 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
