Tuesday, September 13, 2005
Foreign Ministry works to free hostage in Iraq
Jekerjian pleads to employer to comply with kidnappers’ demands
By Nada Bakri
Special to The Daily Star
BEIRUT: The Lebanese Foreign Ministry said yesterday that it was doing
everything possible to free the kidnapped Lebanese citizen in Iraq who is
being held by a previously unheard of group called ” Propagation of Virtue
and Prohibition of Vice.” The name of the group comes from a line in the
Koran, the Islamic holy book, and is used as the title of the religious
police in Saudi Arabia.
According to a statement released by the ministry, the Lebanese charge
d’affaires in Iraq has been asked to conduct “urgent contacts with the
relevant Iraqi authorities” to secure the release of Garabed Jekerjian.
The statement also confirmed that Jekerjian works for a liquor distribution
company in Iraq.
Sources close to the Lebanese Embassy in Iraq told The Daily Star that the
company is now considering announcing its withdrawal from Iraq. The sources
added “such an announcement can help release the hostage, but again nothing
can be predicted in these situations.”
Earlier the group said it had “captured an importer of food and liquor in
Baghdad who works for a company that deals directly with the Crusader
occupiers of Iraq,” and it demanded the company’s “withdrawal from Iraq as
soon as possible in order to free the Lebanese hostage – otherwise woe on
him and you.”
On Sunday, Jekerjian appeared in a video posted on an Islamic Web site,
sitting on the floor in front of a gray wall with chains around his wrists
and ankles. A masked man points a rifle at his head. It was not possible to
authenticate the video in which he was pleading his company – named Jetco –
to leave Iraq to save his life. He also asked President Emile Lahoud and the
Lebanese Embassy to pressure the company to leave the country.
Referring to Lebanese President Emile Lahoud and his apparent boss, Jubran,
he says:
“Emile Lahoud, Jubran, colleagues and friends, please press the company and
the embassy. … Please, I have no one else. I am alone. I have a daughter.
Please, I beg you to leave [Iraq].”
He added: “I hold dual Lebanese and Cypriot nationality and I work with the
branches of the ‘Jetco Trading’ company in Lebanon, Cyprus and Iraq. The
company supplies foodstuffs and alcoholic beverages to the occupation forces
and the Iraqi Army.”
Sources told The Daily Star that the kidnappers have asked for a ransom of
$2 million.
More than two weeks had passed since the kidnapping of Jekerjian and another
Lebanese man who remains unheard of, with no news of their fate. The second
hostage Elie Nassif, and Jekerjian were kidnapped from Jekerjian’s house in
the upscale Mansour neighborhood in Baghdad some two weeks ago. According to
sources in Iraq, the kidnappers were disguised in police uniforms.
As the string of abductions against Lebanese nationals continues, Iraqi
authorities stand helpless in the face of the street gangs causing
widespread terror.
The Lebanese authorities have issued more than one notice warning Lebanese
citizens against traveling to Iraq. – With agencies.