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Captors 'poised to free Wood'
DOUGLAS Wood is alive and will be freed "at any time" according to French negotiators working alongside the Australian hostage team in Baghdad.The French connection was revealed as Australian mufti Sheik Taj al-Din al-Hilaly checked out of his Baghdad hotel room and headed to Dubai to treat a heart condition. The sheik's spokesman said he would later return to Iraq. "We believe he's alive and will soon be free," a French source outlined to The Daily Telegraph yesterday. The breakthrough comes as Prime Minister John Howard said yesterday he had no official confirmation Mr Wood, 63, was alive or would be released. The armed militants holding the Australian engineer are also holding French journalist Florence Aubenas, who was kidnapped in January. A high-powered Australian government hostage negotiating team turned to Paris for help after it became clear that the Wood case was following a similar pattern to an earlier French hostage drama. The Australian team has been in daily contact with the French embassy and its large team of Arabic-speaking diplomats who are plugged in to Baghdad's shadowy political and religious scene. Two French journalists were freed late last year after France's top mufti negotiated directly with the Sunni sheik who controls the group holding Mr Wood, the Shura Council of the Mujahideen of Iraq. A substantial "charitable donation" from the Wood family has also been made to help secure the release after the hostage team was told by the French that a similar donation clinched the deal to free the two journalists. The French mufti also left Baghdad yesterday after finalising plans for the release of Ms Aubenas who is held by a group closely associated with Mr Wood's captors. It is understood the French charity Medicins Sans Frontiere has played a central role in the negotiations. Like Sheik Taj al-Din al-Hilaly, the French Muslim leader spoke with Ms Aubenas, who suffers from diabetes, and left Baghdad with assurances that she would soon be released. Authorities now expect the captors, who are associated with a powerful Iraqi Sunni sheik, to release both hostages in the near future. Sheik Taj al-Din al-Hilaly has spoken to the same Sunni contacts as the French Muslim leader. "They are not held by an al-Qaeda group and no ransom has been demanded so they should be okay," a source with the French revealed to The Daily Telegraph. Mr Wood's Canberra-based family was last night nervously waiting for any news and knew nothing about the latest reports. Mr Wood has been held for almost three weeks after being kidnapped in Baghdad where he was operating a small engineering company. He lives in California and is married to an American, Yvonne Given. Posted by: Spavirt Pheng6042 2005-05-19 |
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