`Come home' plea to our first hostage: [1 All-round Country Edition]
John Stapleton, John Kerin. The Australian [Canberra, A.C.T] 17 Sep 2004: 2.
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Abstract
Word of Sheikh Naji's kidnapping emerged following an intense effort by the Department of Foreign Affairs to contact all Australiansin Iraq after Monday's report that an Islamic terror group had taken two Australians and two Asians hostage.
The terror group the Horror Brigades of the Islamic Secret Army demanded that John Howard pull all Australian troops out of Iraq by Tuesday or the hostages would be killed.
A ransom of $US100,000 ($144,000) was demanded, but he was released without being harmed after his captors were reportedly divided over whether or not to keep an Islamic cleric hostage.
THE family of Sheikh Mohammad Naji, the first Australian to be kidnapped in Iraq, is pleading with him to return to Australia for his own safety.
Word of Sheikh Naji's kidnapping emerged following an intense effort by the Department of Foreign Affairs to contact all Australiansin Iraq after Monday's report that an Islamic terror group had taken two Australians and two Asians hostage.
The terror group the Horror Brigades of the Islamic Secret Army demanded that John Howard pull all Australian troops out of Iraq by Tuesday or the hostages would be killed.
But the deadline passed and, with the department accounting for all known 225 Australians in Iraq, suspicions have firmed that thekidnapping was a hoax.
The developments came as two Americans and one Briton were abducted from their house in the plush Mansur district of Baghdad, inthe latest of a series of foreign hostage takings.
Sheikh Naji, 60, lived in Australia from 1990 until the fall of Saddam Hussein prompted him to return home.
He said he was held hostage for four days last week after being kidnapped in the Iraqi town of Latifya, south of Baghdad.
While in Australia he was one of Sydney's leading Shia clerics, holding prayers every Friday at the Ahall Albaeit Centre in Auburn.
A ransom of $US100,000 ($144,000) was demanded, but he was released without being harmed after his captors were reportedly divided over whether or not to keep an Islamic cleric hostage.
"He thought he would do more good in Iraq," his niece Eynass Naji told The Australian in Sydney yesterday.
"He said the people needed him there."
Sheikh Naji is one of many from the Iraqi diaspora who returned to their home country after the fall of Saddam to help rebuild theshattered nation.
The Naji family in Australia say that Saddam killed the Sheikh's brother and that the entire family fled the country terrified after a failed uprising.
"The whole family is pleading with him to come back," Mrs Naji said. "We don't want him kidnapped again."
His cousin Muhanad said the news of Sheikh Naji's kidnapping and ransom, which had come from his wife Ketam, was a big shock to his family.
"We could not sleep," he said. "We did not know whether he is alive or going to be killed.
"We prepared to sell what we have got -- furniture, cars, even our house -- because he is the greatest man.
"He is not just a religious man, but a very helpful man to many other people."
They say the ransom was never paid and that his release was the work of God.
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