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New scourge of Iraq
24/07/2003 21:36 - (SA)
Baghdad - Bassel Bahnam has just had a close shave. He is shaken, but alive after his family paid a $40 000 ransom for his release after two days held by kidnappers who abducted him outside his Baghdad home.
The case of the printing firm boss is just the latest in a raidly expanding business in Iraq, with kidnapping gangs taking advantage of a near-total lack of effective policing to develop their extortion rackets.
A doctor was released a few weeks ago in the southern city of Basra after his family gave in to kidnappers' demands.
Sitting in the print workshop in Baghdad's Batawin district, Bahnam's cousin says the kidnappers are organised criminal gangs made up of members of Saddam Hussein's former security apparatus.
"They are used to having lots of money, and now they don't have it, so they use force to get it," he says, adding the gangs could also be from the large number of criminals released under a presidential amnesty last year.
"They pulled up in front of the house with two cars at about 08:30 in the morning, and when my cousin went out six people armed with guns bundled him into a car," he says.
"One hour later they telephoned me saying Bassel owed them money. There were more calls. First they demanded 100 000 dollars, then 50 000, then 40 000.
"With friends and family we managed to scrape the cash together and it was given to a go-between on the road to Diyala" northeast of Baghdad.
The family went to the local police station. "They told us it wasn't the first time it had happened, but all they did was take the licence plates of the two cars."
US soldiers would not allow journalists to talk to Iraqi police about the incident, and no statistics were available on the numbers of abductions reported since the US-led war.
But on a wall in the police station, a leaflet for a woman reported missing testified to the growing problem.
- AFX
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