American Man Shot by Sniper After Going for Bicycle Ride Around Tripoli

An American activist in Tripoli was shot, apparently by a sniper -- after going for a bicycle ride around the capital as the rebels closed in.

Franklin Lamb, director of Americans for Middle East Peace, told NewsCore on Monday of his brush with death a day earlier.

As he spoke from his room at the Corinthia Hotel he said there was "some bombing, some machine gunfire" continuing in the streets but the situation was otherwise "relatively calm."

Lamb, who was born in Oregon, was shot Sunday morning after returning from a bicycle tour of the city.

"I was out in Tripoli on a bicycle for 90 minutes and when I came back, walking by the swimming pool of this hotel, I was shot in my right leg," he said in a statement to Russia Today.

"The doctor gave me the bullet as a souvenir. I'm fine but there was suggestion that the sniper was on the Marriot Hotel. That's unconfirmed."

Lamb, a Beirut-based lawyer by profession, told NewsCore he had been in western Libya for two months documenting civilian deaths during the unrest.

"I'd been here a while and we've been pretty free to go where we want to go. But the last few days there've been no taxis. Maybe [there's] a little risk."

Lamb said that most of the staff at his five-star hotel had failed to show up for work Monday.

He added that he was none the worse for wear despite having been shot.

"I don't know if you've ever been shot in the leg. I never have," Lamb said, according to Russia Today.

"I've got painkillers and I've got bandages. I'm okay. I'm lucky the guy didn't hit me in the head.”