OTTAWA, CANADA - Canadian journalist Amanda Lindhout, who was freed Wednesday after 15 months in captivity in Somalia, says she was beaten and tortured by her captors, who she called criminals pretending to be freedom fighters.

The families of Lindhout and Australian photojournalist Nigel Brennan paid a one-million dollar ransom for their freedom, she acknowledged to broadcaster CTV.

She said her captors' motivation was not political. "I think that it was criminals - criminals under the guise of being freedom fighters for Somalia," she said.

Lindhout said she spent her captivity "sitting in a corner on the floor 24 hours a day for the last 15 months. There were times that I was beaten, that I was tortured."

"It was extremely oppressive," she added. "I was kept by myself at all times. I had no one to speak to. I was normally kept in a room with a light, no window, I had nothing to write on or with. There was very little food."

The kidnappers told her that they beat her, she said, because the money "wasn't coming quickly enough."

"They seemed to think that if they beat me enough, then when I was able to speak to my mother... that I would be able to say the right thing to convince her to pay the ransom for me, which was one million dollars," she explained.

Lindhout and Brennan were in a Mogadishu hotel on Wednesday evening, pending their departure from Somalia on Thursday.

They were captured on August 23, 2008, en route from Mogadishu to visit a refugee camp in Afgooye, just outside the capital.

A Somali journalist and two drivers were also taken hostage but freed after 177 days. They were unable to identify their captors or the motives for the kidnappings.