BALTIMORE — A Baltimore writer missing in Libya has been sighted in a prison in Tripoli, U.S. Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger and the writer's mother said Thursday.

Matthew VanDyke went to Libya this winter to write about the uprising against Moammar Gadhafi. He was there about a week when he disappeared in March.

Ruppersberger's spokeswoman Jaime Lennon said there have been two independent sightings of the 32-year-old in a Tripoli prison and that the State Department was working to confirm them.

The State Department is aware of reports about VanDyke and is working for access to all U.S. citizens missing and detained in Libya, spokesman Noel Clay said Thursday. VanDyke is one of seven people who are missing or presumed detained in Libya that the State Department is tracking and assisting, he said.

"This is good news. It's a lead and we're hopeful," Ruppersberger said in a statement. "We'll do everything we can to bring Matthew home safe and sound."

The writer's mother, Sharon VanDyke, and his girlfriend, Lauren Fischer, said they learned about the sightings in an email from an international humanitarian aid group a few days ago. VanDyke alerted State Department officials, but wanted to give them time to start checking on the information before telling a wider circle of family and friends early Thursday.

"He is in prison in Tripoli, which may startle some of you that I think prison is a great place to be," Sharon VanDyke wrote in the email. "The exciting part of this news is that finally Matthew has been located."

Previously she had heard from a friend of her son that an unnamed man told him Matthew VanDyke was in a prison, but there was no specific person that officials could check with.

"It's exciting, a real adrenaline rush," VanDyke said by phone Thursday. "That's the best news that we've had and it's credible enough for the State Department to move on."

Fischer said it was a relief to finally get an update on her boyfriend, whom she met in a hostel in Spain in 2006 while VanDyke waited to set off on a ride across north Africa and the Middle East. He ended up staying in Spain for eight months teaching English and fixing the bike, she said.

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"After not hearing anything since April, it was good to hear something," she said.

VanDyke traveled throughout the Middle East, including Iraq and Afghanistan, from 2007 to 2009. He visited Libya for six weeks in 2008 and had kept in touch with friends there, Sharon VanDyke said. He planned to be at home for a year working on a book on his travels, but he found himself distracted by the events in the Middle East, she said.

"My next thing is find him and get him home," VanDyke said. "At least now we know where he is."

Online: http://www.facebook.com/FreeVanDyke

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