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Sadr: Release journo now
20/08/2004 10:28 - (SA)
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| Western journalist Micah Garen and his Iraqi translator were kidnapped by armed men in a busy market in Nasiriyah. (HO, AP) |
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Dubai - Radical Iraqi Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr has ordered the immediate release of a United States journalist taken hostage in Iraq, the captive's sister told Al-Arabiya television on Friday.
"We have been told that Moqtada Sadr and the Mehdi Army have ordered the immediate release of Micah," Eva Garen told the Dubai-based channel.
"We, the family, are hopeful for a positive outcome," she said.
On Wednesday, Al-Jazeera television reported that an armed group in Iraq threatened to kill Garen unless US forces withdraw from the Shiite holy city of Najaf within 48 hours.
"An armed group calling itself 'Martyrs Squad' has announced that it is holding American journalist Micah Garen... and threatened to kill the hostage after 48 hours if US forces do not withdraw from the city of Najaf," it said.
The Qatar-based station aired a video in which the presumed hostage was shown with five hooded gunmen in the background, one of whom read a statement. However, the gunman was not heard speaking.
Najaf has been the site of a showdown between Sadr's militiamen and US and US-backed Iraqi forces.
Garen, 36, founder of Four Corners Media of New York and Colorado, a company that produces documentary videos, photos and text, was abducted on Saturday along with his Iraqi interpreter, Amir Doshe, in a marketplace in the southern city of Nasiriyah.
US authorities said on Thursday they were "troubled and concerned" at the threats to Garen and were "doing everything possible" to determine his whereabouts and "bring about the safe release of this innocent victim of terror."
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