Posted on 06/12/2005 5:13:18 PM PDT by blam
Reporter home after 157 days as Iraq hostage
By Adrian Blomfield in Baghdad and Henry Samuel in Paris
(Filed: 13/06/2005)
A Western reporter held hostage in Iraq was released by her captors over the weekend after five months of often solitary incarceration in a darkened cellar.
Florence Aubenas of the French daily Libération was freed on Saturday and flew home yesterday to scenes of jubilation from family, friends and many ordinary citizens.
Her Iraqi guide, Hussein Hanoun al-Saaedi, was also released and returned home to his family in Baghdad.
"At the end of a long, painful, 157-day captivity that was shared by all French people, they will at last return to their families and their loved ones, and I want to tell them of our joy," President Jacques Chirac said.
Mr Chirac even turned up at a military airport outside Paris to greet her on arrival but the journalist appeared far more interested in the reunion with her family than meeting the head of state.
It is unclear whether a ransom was paid for her release, although diplomatic sources in Baghdad said the capture of the 44-year-old "was financially, rather than politically motivated."
Robert Menard, the head of Reporters sans Frontières, a press freedom group that campaigned for the pair's freedom, suggested on Saturday that the kidnappers initially asked for $15 million.
He later retracted the statement.
More than 200 foreigners have been taken hostage in Iraq, and more than 30 have been killed by their captors.
The Libération reporter spent more time as the prisoner of her captors than any other foreigner who has survived such an ordeal.
Miss Aubenas yesterday thanked the French public and media for their support during her captivity. She said she had been kept in "severe" conditions in a basement, blindfolded with her hands and ankles bound.
Three Romanian journalists held with her for nearly two months but released a fortnight ago, described her as a tower of strength.
"We managed to whisper together in English," said Ovidiu Ohanesian, a reporter for the daily Romania Libera. "I have total admiration for Florence. She is the strongest person I have ever met."
>> It is unclear whether a ransom was paid
Only to some.
Chirac wants to meet her so he can get the most anti American statement possible coming from her. This will be a little "prep" session. Like the Italian commie dirt ball broad.
"Miss Aubenas yesterday thanked the French public and media for their support during her captivity. She said she had been kept in "severe" conditions in a basement, blindfolded with her hands and ankles bound"
Sounds like a real gulag type operation. Where's Amnesty International when you need them?
she was as much a hostage as patty hearst was.
Of course the French paid the ransom...
The French always kneel before their enemies...
That is precisely how their life will end....kneeling.
Semper Fi
I bet she wishes she was at Gitmo rather than a prisoner in Iraq.
Well, I don't know. She probably had a 'go' with all the guys there...don't you think? She'll probably have those memories forever, priceless.
It is good news that this journalist and her driver are free.
The bad news is that France has a terrible history of negotiating with terrorists and paying ransoms. Countries should NEVER negotiate with terrorists, never, under any circumstances.
The word in the French media is that $15,000,000 was paid to the terrorists.
These people actually believe that the ransom money will go to help the "poor and suffering " Iraqi people, when we all know it will go directly back into the hands of the terrorists who took them in the first place. The ransom will help pay for more murder and mayhem by terrorists around the world.
idiots
No doubt they were paid off and Americans and allies and innocent Iraqis will die in the coming weeks because of it.
Jacques Iraq - the shame of Europe.
Obviously this press freedom group is not concerned with freedom of the press, as we know it.
That is funny.
poor boy...
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