French Engineer Latest Iraq Kidnap Victim
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 8:44 a.m. ET
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Unidentified gunmen abducted a French engineer as he was on his way to work Monday in Baghdad, police and the French foreign ministry said, the latest in a wave of kidnappings of Westerners.
The trial for Saddam Hussein resumed, and defense attorneys walked out after judges on the Iraqi High Tribunal refused to hear arguments over the court's legitimacy. Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, a member of the defense team, was later allowed to make the argument and the defense attorneys returned.
Also Monday, the U.S. military said a soldier assigned to Task Force Baghdad was killed when a patrol hit a roadside bomb on Sunday.
The kidnappers in three cars surrounded the man as he was getting into a car outside a house in the wealthy Mansour district of Baghdad, police Capt. Qassim Hussein said. The man was on his way to work at the Risafa Water Plant, in the center of the capital, he added.
A photo identification card found at the scene was for Bernard Planche, the head of mission for AACCESS NGO, a group that works on U.S.-funded water projects. Traces of blood were also found next to one vehicle.
In Paris, French Foreign Ministry spokesman Jean-Baptiste Mattei confirmed Planche was the victim and that he worked for a non-governmental organization called AACCESS.
Mattei said the French Embassy in Baghdad had previously warned Planche of the dangers he ran ''by not taking the measures essential to his security.''
''He had been advised to leave the country or, failing that, to stay in touch with the embassy,'' Mattei said, adding that the embassy was in close contact with Iraqi authorities to secure his release.
Saddam and seven co-defendants are standing trial for the 1982 killing of more than 140 Shiites after an assassination attempt against the former president in Dujail.
Small explosions reverberated through Baghdad, apparently from mortar rounds, but there were no immediate reports of damage or casualties. Such explosions are not uncommon in Baghdad and most do not cause any harm.
In Saddam's hometown of Tikrit, a demonstration of support for the former ruler turned violent when protesters began tearing down election posters. Police intervened and arrested three people.
A statement released Sunday by the office of Mouwaffak al-Rubaie, Iraq's national security adviser, said the 1920 Revolution Brigades, one of the country's best-known insurgent groups, planned to attack the building during the court session.
As French officials began working on the latest kidnapping case, German officials and a British peace activist reported no progress in obtaining the release of a German aid worker and four members of Christian Peacemaker Teams.
In Berlin, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said a special crisis team was working to secure the release of Susanne Osthoff, 43, and her driver, but had no further information on their fate Monday. They were seized on Nov. 25.
In a video made public Tuesday but never broadcast in full, her kidnappers threatened to kill her unless Germany stops cooperating with the Iraqi government. According to news reports in Germany, the kidnappers' ultimatum expired in the early hours of Friday, but the government has refused to comment on those reports.
''The German government is continuing its efforts to clarify the fate of the German citizen who has been missing in Iraq since last Friday,'' Jens Ploetner, spokesman for the German Foreign Ministry told reporters.
In Baghdad, Anas Altikriti, a leading member of the British anti-war movement, met leaders of the Iraqi Islamic Party. He told journalists that he had no direct contact with those who abducted the four peace activists.
On Friday, Al-Jazeera broadcast a videotape and statement in which the kidnappers threatened to kill the hostages unless all prisoners in U.S. and Iraqi detention centers were freed by Dec. 8.
The Christian activists -- Norman Kember, 74, of London; Tom Fox, 54, of Clear Brook, Va.; James Loney, 41, of Toronto; and Harmeet Singh Sooden, 32, of Canada -- had been repeatedly warned by Iraqi and Western security officials that they were taking a grave risk by moving about Baghdad without bodyguards.
The group has asked that no military action be taken to free the hostages and has appealed to the groups that has taken credit for the abduction -- the Swords of Righteousness Brigade -- to release them. |
