Harare, Zimbabwe ? A New York Times correspondent and a British man who were arrested and accused of reporting illegally in Zimbabwe are now free on bail, but their passports are being held and they are unable to leave the country, a lawyer said Monday.

Barry Bearak, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist for the Times, suffered a back injury during a fall in his cell, said Harrison Nkomo, a lawyer representing the two.

The Times reported on its Web site Monday that Bearak had fallen 7 feet from his bunk onto a concrete floor in his cell.

The identity of the Briton being held has not been made public. He is staying at the British Embassy.

The journalists were detained Thursday by heavily armed riot police who surrounded and entered a Harare hotel frequented by foreign reporters.

Zimbabwe’s government had banned most foreign journalists from covering the elections and also barred Western election observers. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists expressed alarm at the arrests and called for the reporters’ immediate release.

On Monday, the group said it was “relieved” Bearak was no longer in jail.

“We ask that authorities refrain from pursuing any legal action and return Bearaks passport,” CPJ executive director Joel Simon said. “Journalists must be allowed to cover this important story.”

Zimbabwe’s government controls the country’s local media and refused to accredit scores of reporters from abroad for the elections. The Foreign Correspondents Association of Southern Africa, which represents 192 journalists from 122 media around the world, had protested what it called a “near-blanket denial of accreditation.”

A judge had ordered the foreigners’ release last week but they continued to be held for days.

Bill Keller, executive editor of The New York Times, said Saturday that Bearak had been interrogated for hours by police trying to get him to give names of people he had interviewed.

Nkomo said the journalists are expected to appear in court Thursday, at which point he plans to argue they should not be tried at all because they did not commit a crime.

The offense, if convicted, carries a maximum penalty of a fine, two years in prison, or both, another lawyer said earlier.

Two South Africans similarly charged also were granted bail Monday, but were not released because the ruling came too late for payment to be made, Nkomo said. He said they were expected to be released today.

Globecast spokeswoman Melanie Gibb has said the two are technicians who had received the necessary accreditation to work in Zimbabwe. She said Sunday that one of the technicians needed hospital care because he was running out of his medication for diabetes and the other needed medication for bronchitis.

Zimbabwe’s electoral commission has yet to announce the results of the March 29 presidential election.

Unofficial tallies by independent monitors show opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai won more votes than longtime President Robert Mugabe – but fewer than the 50 percent plus one vote required to avoid a runoff.