I have been waiting for this story to emerge.
Why does Nick Berg's family think this:
"Nick Berg's family thinks that he was left out to dry by US who helped free him from iraqi police and then sent him on his way."
And this:
Berg's family disputed U.S. officials' claims that Berg was never in U.S. custody.
"The Iraqi police do not tell the FBI what to do, the FBI tells the Iraqi police what to do. Who do they think they're kidding?" Berg's father, Michael Berg, told The Associated Press from his home in West Chester, Pa., a Philadelphia suburb.
Slain American thought to be Jewish spy
Nicholas Berg told friends Iraqi police arrested him because of name; FBI claims disputed.
Berg
News-Leader Wire Services
Baghdad, Iraq — Nicholas Berg, the 26-year-old American whose videotaped decapitation was posted on the Internet, told friends here that Iraqi police arrested him because he had a Jewish-sounding last name and an Israeli stamp in his passport.
"They thought he was a spy," said Hugo Infante, a Chilean who works for the United Press International news service and lives at the al Fanar Hotel in central Baghdad, where Berg stayed until he checked out April 10 to return to the United States.
Berg apparently was taken hostage and then executed sometime before Saturday, when his headless body was discovered in a western suburb of Baghdad.
Why Berg was arrested, who held him, what happened to him after his release and what role his religion might have had in his death are key questions about the final days of the former Cornell University student with a penchant for travel to Third World countries.
U.S. authorities said Wednesday Berg had been warned by the FBI to leave Iraq and was offered a plane ride to safety at a time when a new wave of violence spread across the country.
Berg's family disputed U.S. officials' claims that Berg was never in U.S. custody.
"The Iraqi police do not tell the FBI what to do, the FBI tells the Iraqi police what to do. Who do they think they're kidding?" Berg's father, Michael Berg, told The Associated Press from his home in West Chester, Pa., a Philadelphia suburb.
Infante, 31, said Berg didn't seem particularly alarmed about his arrest and detention in the northern city of Mosul, where he apparently was held from March 25 to April 6. "He wasn't mad. It was adventure for him," Infante said, a view echoed by another friend, Andrew R. Duke, who said Berg shook off his detention.
"Basically his attitude it was all sort of fun, inconvenient," recalled Duke, 43, of Boulder, Colo.
The accounts of Berg's neighbors at the hotel where he lived as he pursued work in Iraq servicing communications towers provide the most detailed version to date of how the West Chester, Pa., native came to be in Iraqi police custody.
Infante said he last saw Berg on April 8 in the hotel's Internet cafe and that Berg told him he was leaving the country because business had declined. Berg talked about taking a plane from Baghdad to Jordan, Infante said.
Duke, who drank beer with Berg the night before he left, said Berg told him he'd made a lot of money and was thinking about going sailing in Turkey. He said he thought Berg was planning to leave the country by land.
"He was looking forward to going home," Duke said.
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