Romanian presidency says Iraq hostages alive, calls for release of woman
held
Agence France Presse
April 27, 2005
BUCHAREST (AFP) – Three Romanians being held hostage in Iraq are alive,
a source close to the presidency said, although the deadline set by
their kidnappers had expired several hours earlier.
The Romanian authorities also called for the release of the only woman
among the three, reporter Marie-Jeanne Ion, on “humanitarian and
religious grounds”.
The source said that Bucharest had sent a message to the kidnappers, who
are calling for the withdrawal of Romanian troops from Iraq, saying “the
Romanian people do not accept that a woman bearing the name of the
Virgin Mary should be threatened with death” on the eve of the Orthodox
Church’s Easter.
On Wednesday for the first time the presidency made a public appeal to
the group holding Ion, a reporter with Prima TV, her cameraman Sorin
Miscoci and Eduard Ohanesian, correspondent of the Romania Libera
newspaper. They were seized on March 28.
The Romanians also asked for the deadline of 1300 GMT Wednesday to be
extended and called on Iraqi religious leaders to involve themselves in
“steps to free the three hostages.”
The kidnappers had set the deadline for Bucharest to announce the
withdrawal of its 860 troops from Iraq to save the journalists’ lives,
according to a report by the Arab satellite news channel Al-Jazeera.
Prayers for the three were said in central Bucharest.
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