Posted on 08/16/2004 7:46:01 AM PDT by HAL9000
ROME, Aug 16 (AFP) - Italian military officials denied on Monday reports that they had kicked out of their base in the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah an American journalist who was kidnapped at the weekend while reporting on archaeological sites in the area."The journalist was not kicked out of Camp Mittica, the Italian base where he had been staying since early June," Captain Ettore Sarli, spokesman for the Italian contingent in Iraq, was quoted as saying by the Ansa news agency.
"The journalist stayed with us until August 11 when he handed back the badge that allowed him access to the base saying he was headed to Baghdad."
Micah Garen, founder and head of Four Corners Media, a company specialising in film, photo and written documentaries, was kidnapped on Saturday in Nasiriyah while walking in the local market, the city's deputy governor Adnan al-Sharifi told AFP.
The head of archaeological services in Nasiriyah, Abdul Amir al-Hamdani, said Garen had been living for the past few days in a hotel in the city, 375 kilometres (235 miles) south of Baghdad while preparing a project to protect archaeological sites in the area.
Hamdani said Garen had fallen foul of Italian troops in the area after accusing them of killing civilians, including a pregnant woman, in a clash 10 days before with Shiite militia.
"He took photographs of an ambulance which had been machine-gunned... and sent them to the government in Rome, saying that the Italian forces had killed a family and not terrorists," he added.
As a result, the Italians had banned him from their base and he had moved into the city, Hamdani said.
Sarli denied Hamdani's assertions saying there were no hard feelings toward the journalist whose photos, he said, were not deemed credible
Websites show Garen to have been active in Iraq for several months, producing work focussing on the threat to archaeological sites since the fall of Saddam Hussein but also covering other current events.
He is also linked to the Four Corners Strategy Group, which provides technology and management consulting services to non-profit and non-governmental organisations.
Was he filming a sequel for Michael Moore??
He's from the other side.
He was a leftist activist with an agenda.
He was also an enemy of peace and freedom for the Iraqi people - his dearest wish was that the US-led liberation of Iraq fail.
He will not be missed.
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