Ex-hostage Hamill heads home

2004-05-03 14:32

Baghdad - Thomas Hamill, an American working in Iraq who escaped from his Iraqi kidnappers after three weeks in captivity, flew to Germany on Monday for a reunion with his wife.

Hamill pried open a door in the house where he was being held north of Baghdad when he heard a US patrol passing by on Sunday, then led the troops to the house, where two Iraqis were captured.

Hamill will have a checkup at a U.S. military hospital in Germany and see his wife, Kellie.

Hamill, a 43-year-old truck driver from Macon, Mississippi working for the Halliburton subsidiary KBR, was abducted by gunmen on April 9 after his convoy was attacked outside Baghdad. His fate had been unknown since he appeared in a videotape released the next day by his captors, who threatened to kill him within 12 hours unless the siege of Fallujah was lifted.

On Sunday, Hamill reappeared in the town of Balad, 70km north of Baghdad, when he ran up to a patrol from the 2nd Battalion, 108th Infantry, part of the New York National Guard, and identified himself. He then lead the soldiers to the house from which he had just escaped, and two Iraqis with an automatic weapon were arrested.

Infected wound

Hamill had an infected gunshot wound in his left arm. The video images of Hamill soon after his abduction showed his left arm in a sling, suggesting he'd be wounded during the attack on his convoy.

Hamill's abduction came at the height of the wave of kidnappings of foreigners sparked by the intense violence that began in early April. An American soldier, Pfc Keith Maupin, remains in the hands of kidnappers, as do three other Italian security guards.

Maupin and Hamill were in the same convoy that came under attack in Abu Ghraib. They, along with six other KBR employees and another US soldier, were initially reported as missing. Four of the KBR employees and the second soldier were later found dead. Halliburton said in its statement that it still had no information on the two KBR employees still missing.

- News24