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Al-Jazeera Airs Tape of James Loney's Family Appealing for His Release

Posted on: Sunday, 26 February 2006, 18:00 CST

BAGHDAD (CP) - The Arabic-language Al-Jazeera satellite channel broadcast a tape Sunday it received from the family of Canadian hostage James Loney, appealing for his release and that of three colleagues abducted with him last November.

"James is a loving, compassionate, selfless man," said a woman relative who appeared on the tape.

She did not say specify her relation to Loney, but may be his sister-in-law since she said her husband and his relatives were scared for their brother.

A group calling itself the Swords of Righteousness Brigades claimed responsibility for the Nov. 26 kidnapping of Loney, 41, of Toronto, Harmeet Sooden, 32, formerly of Montreal, American Tom Fox, 54, and Briton Norman Kember, 74, all members of the group Christian Peacemaker Teams.

The woman called for the release of Loney and the others so that they can return to their families and continue to carry out their humanitarian duties in Iraq.

She spoke in English, but Al-Jazeera aired an Arabic translation over her comments so her exact quotes were not available.

The woman said the hostages greatly appreciate the Iraqi people, whom Loney never hesitated to support.

She said she was grateful for efforts by Muslim and Christian clerics to secure the release of the hostages.

Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay raised hopes about the fate of the hostages last week when he said, citing intelligence, that they were "very much" alive, and that the Canadian government believed they would probably be released.

But he played down those expectations the following day, saying the intelligence in question was a month-old videotape that had aired on Al-Jazeera.

The four Christian Peacemakers were last seen in that tape, released Jan. 29 but date-stamped eight days earlier.

Iraqi police, meanwhile, conducted raids in search of kidnapped American journalist Jill Carroll on Sunday, the deadline set by her captors for the United States to meet their demands, but the day passed without word on whether her captors carried out their threat to kill her.

The 28-year-old freelancer for the Christian Science Monitor was kidnapped Jan. 7 in Baghdad and was last seen in a videotape broadcast Feb. 9 by the private Kuwaiti television station Al-Rai.

Station owner Jassem Boudai said then that the kidnappers had set Feb. 26 as the deadline for U.S. and Iraqi authorities to meet their demands or they would kill her.

The kidnappers, a formerly unknown group calling themselves the Revenge Brigades, have publicly demanded the release of all women detainees in Iraq, but Boudai indicated the group provided more specific conditions that he refused to reveal.

On Sunday, an Iraqi Interior Ministry official said an extensive search was underway for Carroll.

"Our forces raided some suspected places, but she was not there," Maj. Falah al-Mohammedawi said. "We are watching the situation closely."

The U.S. administration, the Palestinian militant group Hamas, the Committee to Protect Journalists and the student newspaper at the University of Massachusetts have called for Carroll's release.

A woman who answered the phone Sunday morning at Carroll's mother's house said the family had no new information and politely declined comment.

Source: Canadian Press

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