Mother pleads for hostage
2006-01-19 16:46
Washington - The mother of a United States journalist abducted in Iraq who has been threatened with death unless the United States frees all female prisoners in Iraq, pleaded on Thursday for her daughter's release.
"A video just released gives us hope that Jill is alive but has also shaken us about her fate," said Mary Beth Carroll, whose daughter was seized by gunment in Baghdad on January 7.
"So I, her father and her sister are appealing directly to her captors to release this young woman, who has worked so hard to show the suffering of Iraqis," she said reading the family's prepared statement on CNN television.
"Taking vengeance on my innocent daughter, who loved Iraq and its people, will not create justice. To her captors, I say that Jill's welfare depends upon you, and so we call upon you to ensure that Jill is returned safely home to her family, who needs her and loves her."
Carroll pleaded with the captors to "work with Jill to find a way to contact us with the honourable intent of discussing her release."
On Tuesday, the Qatar-based Arabic television station Al-Jazeera showed a videotape of Jill Carroll taken by her kidnappers, who issued their execution ultimatum.
The 28-year-old freelance reporter, wearing a grey sweatshirt, with her long brown hair loose, was shown alone in the video and speaking, but there was no sound. It was the first time she had been seen since her disappearance.
In Iraq on Wednesday, a justice ministry official said that six Iraqi women detainees were to be freed in the coming days. US forces had earlier said they were holding a total of eight Iraqi women because they presented "an imperative threat" to the security of Iraq.
Jill Carroll arrived in Iraq in 2003 and worked for a variety of news organizations from several different countries. She began filing stories for the Christian Science Monitor, her current newspaper, early last year.