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Freed Egyptian says treated well by Iraqi captors
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-07-28 01:51
Three days after they seized him as he walked home from a Baghdad mosque,
Egyptian diplomat Mohamed Mamdouh Qutb's captors gave him a dagger, a string of
prayer beads -- and an apology.
Mohammed Mamdouh
Helmi Qutb, the third highest ranking diplomat at the Egyptian mission,
who was released Monday night by kidnappers, smiles under a portrait of
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak during a press conference after he
arrived at the Egyptian Embassy in Mansour, northwest of Baghdad, Iraq
early Tuesday July 27, 2004. [Reuters] | "At the
beginning they threatened to kill me," Qutb, third secretary at Egypt's embassy
in Baghdad, told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday a day after his release.
"But later they apologized and at the end they gave me a string of prayer
beads and a dagger as presents."
Qutb said four masked gunmen in a car seized him as he walked home from
Friday prayers. The next time his colleagues saw him was on a video sent to Al
Jazeera television, showing him kneeling and surrounded by black-clad hooded
guerrillas.
Qutb said that although his captors were violent at first, they changed their
behavior after speaking to him, and overall he was treated well by the
kidnappers, who were all Iraqis.
Relaxed and smiling at the Egyptian embassy, he said the kidnappers had
seized him to protest against Egypt receiving Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi
on an official visit last week.
"I told them that Egypt supports the Iraqi people and when we help in
building hospitals and schools we do it for the Iraqi people and not for
individuals or for the multinational forces," Qutb said.
He said his kidnappers told him they refused many ransom offers for his
release because "they didn't do it for money." While in captivity, Qutb knew
nothing about mediation efforts to win his release.
"I knew after my release that the Iraqi and Egyptian governments and Muslim
Clerics' Association mediated for my release," he said.
Kidnappers have seized dozens of foreigners since April to press demands for
foreign troops to leave Iraq (news - web sites), to deter foreigners from
working with U.S. forces or to extract ransoms.
"I think it was a vivid experience," Qutb said.
"I just hope it doesn't happen again."
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