Posted on 05/27/2005 9:02:39 AM PDT by areafiftyone
BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) A Romanian court issued arrest warrants Friday in the kidnappings of three journalists in Iraq, saying the abductions were plotted by the Iraqi-American guide who claimed to be a victim and the businessman who claimed to be negotiating their release.
The three journalists returned to Romania on Monday after 55 days in captivity.
Prosecutors said testimony from nine people arrested in Baghdad led them to seek terrorism charges against Mohammed Monaf, the journalists' guide, and Monaf's business partner, Omar Hayssam.
Monaf, charged in absentia, was reported to have been held with the journalists and was seen with them in videotapes released by the captors.
But after his release, he was transferred to U.S. custody in Baghdad and held for questioning regarding information about ``imminent attacks'' on coalition forces in Iraq, the U.S. embassy in Bucharest has said.
The two men plotted the kidnapping while in Romania and the motivation for the ruse was that Hayssam, one of Romania's wealthiest businessman, was under investigation for financial wrongdoing, prosecutors said. He apparently hoped that ``saving'' the journalists would help him get clemency, they said.
He was arrested last month on tax evasion and fraud in an unrelated case.
Hayssam claimed after the journalists' kidnapping that he received a phone call from the kidnappers demanding $4 million in exchange for their freedom.
He told the court Friday he had raised thousands of dollars to send to the kidnappers to secure the journalists' release, but the money never made it out of Syria. He denies involvement in the kidnapping.
Militants had warned in a videotape aired on Al-Jazeera television after the kidnapping that they would kill the journalists if Romania's 800 troops in the U.S.-led coalition were not withdrawn from Iraq.
After their return to Romania, the journalists Prima TV reporter Marie Jeanne Ion, her cameraman Sorin Miscoci and newspaper reporter Ovidiu Ohanesian were kept in medical quarantine for three days. They were debriefed and told not to talk to the media. They returned to their homes and families Thursday.
Miscoci told reporters the three would hold a news conference in the following days.
``I am happy to be home,'' he said as he hugged friends and waved to neighbors at their windows outside his apartment building in the central city of Sibiu
What the F?
Makes you wonder about that Italian Journalist doesn't it?
Not really. My suspicious mind has always put her on the side of the bad guys--who, by the way, now have unspecified millions to buy more tools for terrorism.
Her original travel partner who went to Iraq with her puts her on the side of the terrorists with her own words and actions.
Maybe someday she'll be kidnapped for real, and no one will care--the old "crying wolf" syndrome...
Shows us what these Italians accomplished by paying of $1.5 million for the release of a Communist newspaper's female journalist. Prior to going Iraq to report the truth she stated that nothing can happen to her since she's on their side.
There is now ransom to go on the table for prisoner releases.
Who ever said Europeans are exempt from repercussions?
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