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Canadian home after four-month Iraq hostage ordeal

Posted on: Sunday, 26 March 2006, 16:10 CST

By Wojtek Dabrowski

TORONTO (Reuters) - Looking tired and thin, but smiling brightly, Canadian peace activist James Loney arrived back in his home country on Sunday after spending four months as a hostage at the hands of Iraqi militants.

"It's great to be alive," Loney, 41, told a group of reporters shortly after his arrival at Toronto's Pearson International Airport.

"For 118 days, I disappeared into a black hole and somehow, by God's grace, I was spit out again," he said, reading from a prepared notes. "It was a terrifying, profound, powerful, transformative and excruciatingly boring experience."

After speaking for about five minutes, Loney was whisked off by Royal Canadian Mounted Police to a waiting car outside.

Loney, along with Norman Kember of London, England, Harmeet Singh Sooden, also a Canadian, and Tom Fox, an American, were kidnapped in Baghdad on November 26 by a group calling itself the "Swords of Truth." Little over two weeks ago, Fox's body was found at a garbage dump in the city.

On Thursday, the three surviving captives were rescued in a military operation involving British and American soldiers. The three are members of the Christian Peacemaker Teams, a group that advocates nonviolence.

Loney was thankful to his rescuers, singling out the British soldiers and the Canadian government, saying: "I am forever and truly grateful."

He said little of his captors or of his treatment at their hands and did not take questions from reporters who met him at the airport.

Loney said now that he is free again he just wants to get reacquainted with his family and other members of his community.

"All I really want to do is to love and be loved by the people that I love," he said. "The one specific thing might be to wash a sink full of dirty dishes."

Patrick Nadon, a friend of Loney's who was also at the airport on Sunday, said, "It was just great to be able to give him a hug and know he was OK."

"Obviously, he's lost a lot of weight and the transition of coming back here is probably going to take some time, but he looks strong," he added.

Loney was expected to head to his home town of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario at some point.

Source: REUTERS

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