Romania's president said Monday the three Romanian journalists who spent nearly two months in captivity in Iraq were victims of a botched kidnapping plan by their Iraqi-American guide and a Syrian-born businessman. President Traian Basescu, who headed a crisis team that worked to free the journalists, provided the first play-by-play account of the kidnapping at a news conference where he detailed contacts between Romanian negotiators and the kidnappers. The president revealed for the first time one of the tensest moments in the 55-day ordeal — when the captors said they were going to provide a Web site where they would broadcast footage of the hostages being decapitated. He also disclosed a Romanian offer to send humanitarian aid to win the captives' freedom as well as a demand by captors for Romania to try to intervene to win the freedom of some Iraqi prisoners. The president also criticized the three journalists for failing to follow security guidelines during their stay in Iraq.The kidnapping of Prima TV reporter Marie Jeanne Ion, cameraman Sorin Miscoci and daily Romania Libera reporter Ovidiu Ohanesian shocked the Romanian public. They were freed on May 22 after 55 days in captivity. The president said authorities believe the three were kidnapped initially by a group put together by the Syrian-born businessman Omar Hayssam and his partner Mohammed Monaf, an Iraqi-American guide who organized the journalists' trip and translated for them. Though Monaf is suspected of orchestrating the kidnapping, the former hostages have said he was held with them the entire time.
Romanian prosecutors have said the two men plotted the kidnapping while in Romania and the motivation for the ruse was that Hayssam, one of Romania's wealthiest businessman, was under investigation for financial wrongdoing and banned from leaving Romania. He apparently hoped that "saving" the journalists would help him get clemency, they said. Monaf allegedly carried out the kidnapping with the help of some friends, but lost control of the situation after a few days when a well organized Iraqi insurgent group intervened and took over the hostages, Basescu said.