Journo recalls hostage ordeal
2005-05-30 13:07
Bucharest - Journalist Ovidiu Ohanesian — back home after nearly two months captive in Iraq — recounted how he and his fellow hostages were trapped in a hot cellar, blindfolded and ordered not to speak.
But he also recounted whispering Orthodox Easter greetings to one another, hearing news of prayers back home and receiving parting gifts from their guards upon news of their release.
Ohanesian, of the daily Romania Libera, TV reporter Marie Jeanne Ion and cameraman Sorin Miscoci of Prima TV were taken captive in Baghdad on March 28 — along with their guide, Mohammed Monaf, an Iraqi American accused of helping to orchestrate the kidnapping with the help of a Syrian-born businessman.
On Monday, Romanian investigators travelled to Baghdad to question Monaf, the Realitatea news television network reported. The information could not be immediately confirmed by the president's office.
Freed thanks to negotiating team
The journalists were released on May 22 after a top-level negotiating team led by President Traian Basescu worked to win their freedom. A group calling itself Maadh Bin Jabal claimed responsibility for the kidnapping in a videotape aired on Al-Jazeera television, and said it freed the hostages after an appeal by Romania's Muslims and a prominent Saudi preacher.
The journalists returned to Romania last Monday to a joyous homecoming. After being examined and debriefed by the government, they were sent home on Thursday.
Giving his first interview on Sunday since their release, Ohanesian — an award-winning investigative journalist — recalled the four were travelling by car in Baghdad just five days into their trip when another vehicle blocked their path.
"Several armed men came out and they told us to get out. They threw me and Miscoci in the trunk. Marie Jeanne was in the back seat, and she kept screaming 'Romania — friends,"' he said in an interview at the Romania Libera offices.
"I tried to escape. I opened the trunk twice, but the car was driving very fast and behind it was one of their cars. If I got out, they would have run me over."
They were taken to "a regular house" with empty rooms with mattresses and fed well, although Ohanesian was barely able to eat. After four days, they were moved to place where conditions were harsher.
Accused of being a spy
Ohanesian, calm in tapes made by the kidnappers, said the captors considered him the "black sheep" because he seemed so serene.
"They thought I was a spy in the beginning, probably because of my attitude. I tried to keep calm by controlling my breathing and thinking about something else," he said, adding he thought about "music, poetry and what I was going to do when I came out. I tried to keep optimistic".
Blindfolded and ordered not to speak, they were punished if they broke the rules — shackled with handcuffs or denied meals.
"We spent 51 days underground, crowded in a small cellar, a weak light bulb, and blindfolded. There was no air, I was sweating abundantly, worse than a sauna," he said.
Calculating the date by meals — tea for breakfast, a cake for lunch — plus rare excursions outside, the three managed to celebrate Orthodox Easter on May 1. "One night in the cellar, we told each other 'Christ has risen!' in whispers but we avoided making the sign of the cross."
A few close scares
Ohanesian said there were a few critical moments when they feared for their lives. At one point, the captors dressed Miscoci in an orange jumpsuit, a colour used by Iraq groups in the past for hostages before executions.
"I thought they were going to kill us one by one — that was the scariest moment," he said.
But there were touching moments as well. When the four were freed, the guards gave them goodbye gifts — a pen, a half-used bottle of perfume — and bought them new clothes. The journalists reciprocated by inviting the guards to visit Romania.
He credited the guards with being civil.
Relief, joy at release
Ohanesian, 37, said his greatest joy after being released "was when I could see the clear sky and the sun. For so many days I couldn't see even a ray of sun". He shuddered as he recalled the cellar measuring 4 by 2 meters and 1.6 meters high.
"My skin is hard now, irritated. Water was coming out of me, and fat, too," he said, fingering a coarsened forearm. "My pants are a bit large now," he said pulling up his khaki pants held up by a belt.
Ohanesian had travelled to Iraq on a trip financed by Monaf to interview former interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, and to write about the problems of ordinary Iraqis as well as about two closed Romanian cement factories.
He said he met Monaf, a businessman who is married to a Romanian, twice before their departure for Iraq.
On Friday, Monaf was charged in absentia with helping to orchestrate the kidnapping. He was being held in Iraq by United States (US) authorities.
Ohanesian said he finds it hard to believe Monaf was involved in the kidnapping. "He has three small children and a large family in Baghdad. I think he was a collateral victim," he said.
"Monaf was held with us the entire time," Ohanesian said.
Omar Hayssam, Monaf's alleged collaborator, denied the charges, and Monaf's wife rejected prosecutors' accusations, saying her husband was a victim.
'He protected our lives'
The daily Gardianul on Saturday cited sources from the president's task force as saying Monaf's plan to kidnap the journalists had gone wrong, and he became a hostage when the Romanians were seized by Islamic fundamentalists.
Ohanesian said media coverage, and demonstrations of support in Romania, were crucial.
"We could feel the news events outside, even though we had no access to news," he said. "The guards would come to us appearing happy and would tell us what they saw on Al-Jazeera ... It was very important for them to be in the media."
He also praised Basescu: "He was wise. He protected our lives. He is one of the decisive reasons we are alive."
Ohanesian also called for the release of French reporter Florence Aubenas and her Iraqi guide, Hussein Hanoun, who held hostage in Iraq since early January, and urged French authorities to negotiate with the kidnappers.
The journalist said he had a personal mission to investigate his ordeal. "I have some hunches but I need to check them out."
But before that, he said he would enjoy his newfound freedom — by going to the mountains "to look at the sky, to be alone, and to do my own personal debriefing".
- AP