Aussie journalist taken hostage

[Guest Nanks]

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/10/...7951658350.html

 

A freelance Aussie journo got taken by Sunni militants and former Iraqi army officers, had his life threatened, was interrogated for 20 hours and then let go unharmed.

 

It seems he just disassociated himself from the Coalition and they had no problem with him. You'd have thought these animals would have just taken the opportunity to hold him and try to get Australia to pull out of Iraq before topping him like all the others.

 

How odd.

[Guest GreatOne]

Now if that were INXS, it'd go:

 

I don't know who to blame more: the terrorist pig fuckers who did this, or John Howard

[therealworldschampion 0]

Ok, this just asks for this snarky comment.....

 

I never saw INXS as a pig fucker ever.....ever

[Rob E Dangerously 0]

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n...1358EDT0593.DTL

 

Militants who kidnapped Australian reporter in Baghdad ``Googled'' him before deciding to release him unharmed

MIKE CORDER, Associated Press Writer

 

Tuesday, October 19, 2004

 

(10-19) 10:58 PDT SYDNEY, Australia (AP) --

 

Iraqi militants who kidnapped an Australian reporter in Baghdad and threatened to kill him Googled his name on the Internet to investigate his work before deciding to release him unharmed, the journalist's executive producer said Tuesday.

 

John Martinkus, the first Australian confirmed as having been abducted in Iraq, was seized in Baghdad early Saturday and held for about 24 hours before being freed.

 

Returning home Tuesday, Martinkus demanded an apology from Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, who had said the journalist was abducted when he went a Baghdad neighborhood that he was warned not to visit. "He was advised not to go to, but he went there anyway," Downer told Melbourne radio station 3AW.

 

"Alexander Downer doesn't know his geography very well," Martinkus told reporters after arriving at Sydney's airport. "I was actually across the road from the Australian Embassy when I was kidnapped. He should apologize to me, actually -- personally."

 

Martinkus' executive producer at Australia's SBS network, Mike Carey, said the Internet -- often used by Iraqi militants to air grisly images of hostages being beheaded -- likely saved Martinkus.

 

"They checked on him to see if he was who he said he was," Carey told The Associated Press. "They Googled him and then went onto a Web site -- either his own or his book publisher's Web site, I don't know which one -- and saw that he was who he was and that was instrumental in letting him go, I think, or swinging their decision."

 

Martinkus, a freelance reporter who also has covered turmoil in East Timor at the time of its 1999 vote for independence from Indonesia, has written books on subjects including Jakarta's actions in East Timor and on life in Iraq since Saddam Hussein's ouster.

 

Carey said the Sydney-based SBS network had been worried for Martinkus' safety after failing to hear from him for almost a day but was only sure he had been kidnapped after his release.

 

"It was just getting to the stage where we were getting really panic stricken," he said. "And I got a call from John saying, 'Mate, I'm at my fixer's house -- they've dropped us at the fixer's house. I've been kidnapped but I'm free."'

 

Fixers are local helpers employed by journalists as translators and drivers to help get them around.

 

Martinkus told Australian Broadcasting Corp. in an interview from Jordan that he was snatched at gunpoint from outside a hotel close to Australia's embassy in Baghdad by insurgents he said were Sunni Muslims.

 

He said they initially threatened to kill him, before checking on his background.

 

"I can't say very much but ... of course they said they were going to kill me," Martinkus said.

 

He said he was treated well once he told his kidnappers he was an independent reporter not linked to the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq.

 

"I told them what I was doing (and) I wasn't armed," he said.

 

Asked how he coped with the situation, Martinkus said: "I just kept talking."

 

Australia, a staunch U.S. ally, sent 2,000 troops to invade Iraq last year and still has 920 military personnel in and around the country. No Australian soldiers have been killed in the country.

[Guest MikeSC]

Ah, trying to give force to the "If We're Nice, They'll Kill Us Last" school of thinking.

-=Mike

[Guest Nanks]

Well, it's weird, they went and fucked up Madrid because they didn't like Spain being involved in the coalition and they've lopped the top off a Japanese and a Briton from memory. Just seems strange they wouldn't kill this guy. Australia are pretty heavily involved in this, very odd.

[BorneAgain 0]

Well, it's weird, they went and fucked up Madrid because they didn't like Spain being involved in the coalition and they've lopped the top off a Japanese and a Briton from memory. Just seems strange they wouldn't kill this guy. Australia are pretty heavily involved in this, very odd.

Never understimate the power of Google.

[Guest MikeSC]

Well, it's weird, they went and fucked up Madrid because they didn't like Spain being involved in the coalition and they've lopped the top off a Japanese and a Briton from memory.  Just seems strange they wouldn't kill this guy.  Australia are pretty heavily involved in this, very odd.

Never understimate the power of Google.

I, actually, have a real problem with Google. They, quietly, decided to filter their own search engine for the Chinese market to block out any sites that might be offensive to the Chinese gov't.

-=Mike