Freed man 'saw 3 beheadings'

2004-07-10 10:55

Islamabad - A Pakistani man who returned home after being freed by Iraqi hostage-takers said on Saturday he saw three fellow captives beheaded.

Amjad Hafeez, 26, who worked as a driver in Iraq for an American company, was released on July 2 after eight days in captivity. He arrived home on Friday.

Hafeez said that the insurgents had locked him in a small room soon after kidnapping him.

"After three days, I was taken to a room where two foreigners and an Iraqi were killed by a fat Iraqi man with sword," he told The Associated Press.

"That fat man killed them one by one."

He said all three victims were beheaded, and that the two foreigners were "English-speaking people", who were crying, weeping and begging for their lives.

He would not say anything more about their identity or nationality.

"I only saw that they were speaking English, and their skin was white," he said.

'So terrified that I started weeping'

There was no immediate confirmation of the deaths, which according to Hafeez occurred on June 27 about 22:00.

Insurgents have beheaded at least two other foreign hostages in Iraq, a South Korean and an American, but they were killed before that date.

"I was also told to get ready for it," he said. "I was so terrified that I started weeping."

"I knew my time had come, but the next day their (the kidnappers') behaviour changed, and they suddenly became nice."

Hafeez said initially his captors thought he was an American CIA agent, but when they knew he was a Pakistani driver and a Muslim, they freed him.

Hafeez said the insurgents also told him that they released him because his mother had made tearful pleas through the media to save his life.

He was captured by the insurgents near a United States base at Balad, 80km north of Baghdad.

He was employed by US company Kellogg, Brown & Root, which provides catering services and living quarters for the US military and American companies working in Iraq.

After his capture, insurgents released a video, threatening to decapitate him unless all Iraqi prisoners were freed.

In the video, Hafeez was shown urging Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf to close the Pakistani embassy in Iraq and ban all Pakistanis from going to the country.

Received call from George W Bush

Musharraf, who has made Pakistan a key ally of the United States in its war on terror, refused to accept the demand, but urged the kidnappers not to harm Hafeez.

Hafeez said after his release he received a call from US President George W Bush, who congratulated him.

"I had not even dreamed the American president would call," he said.

"He wished me well, and I said thank you," Hafeez said.

Hafeez arrived home amid emotional scenes on Friday, greeted by his mother and other family members at Islamabad airport.

- AP