Abductors Threaten to Kill Four Activists
Nelson Hernandez
Washington Post
___________
Baghdad (Iraq):
Kidnappers threatened to kill four Christian peace activists seized in November unless authorities released all prisoners held in Iraq, according to a report aired yesterday on Arabic television.The four gaunt-faced men appeared exhausted but unharmed in a grainy, silent video dated Jan. 21 and broadcast on the Al-Jazeera network.
The channel's news reader said that their captors, from the Swords of Righteousness Brigade, were giving US and Iraqi authorities a ''last chance" to release all prisoners in their possession, ''otherwise their fate will be death."
The captors gave no deadline.The video was the second to emerge since the Nov. 26 kidnapping of Tom Fox, 54, of Clear Brook, Va.; Norman Kember, 74, of London; and James Loney, 41, and Harmeet Singh Sooden, 32, both of Canada. They had been working with the Christian Peacemaker Teams, a group that opposes the war in Iraq and has criticized the treatment of detainees in US and Iraqi jails.
The first video, which appeared soon after the kidnapping, accused the four of being spies for Western governments. The group set a Dec. 8 deadline for their execution, later extended to Dec. 10. Saturday's video was the first sign since the deadline passed that they were still alive.
Jan 29, 2006
Nelson Hernandez
Washington Post
___________
Baghdad (Iraq):
Kidnappers threatened to kill four Christian peace activists seized in November unless authorities released all prisoners held in Iraq, according to a report aired yesterday on Arabic television.The four gaunt-faced men appeared exhausted but unharmed in a grainy, silent video dated Jan. 21 and broadcast on the Al-Jazeera network.
The channel's news reader said that their captors, from the Swords of Righteousness Brigade, were giving US and Iraqi authorities a ''last chance" to release all prisoners in their possession, ''otherwise their fate will be death."
The captors gave no deadline.The video was the second to emerge since the Nov. 26 kidnapping of Tom Fox, 54, of Clear Brook, Va.; Norman Kember, 74, of London; and James Loney, 41, and Harmeet Singh Sooden, 32, both of Canada. They had been working with the Christian Peacemaker Teams, a group that opposes the war in Iraq and has criticized the treatment of detainees in US and Iraqi jails.
The first video, which appeared soon after the kidnapping, accused the four of being spies for Western governments. The group set a Dec. 8 deadline for their execution, later extended to Dec. 10. Saturday's video was the first sign since the deadline passed that they were still alive.
Jan 29, 2006
