Freed hostage 'was treated well'

AMERICAN reporter Jill Carroll, who was kidnapped three months ago in an ambush that killed her translator, was released from captivity yesterday and said she had not been harmed.

Ms Carroll, 28, was dropped off near offices of the Iraqi Islamic Party, the main Sunni political organisation.

"I was treated well, but I don't know why I was kidnapped," she told Baghdad television.

Her family thanked "the generous people around the world who worked officially or unofficially" to gain her freedom. No details were given about the circumstances surrounding her release. The US ambassador said there was no ransom paid by the American embassy, but his remarks left open the question of whether "arrangements" were made by others.

Ms Carroll was kidnapped on January 7 in Baghdad while going to interview Sunni Arab politician Adnan al-Dulaimi for The Christian Science Monitor. Her translator was killed in the attack about 300 yards from Mr al-Dulaimi's office.

The previously unknown Revenge Brigades claimed responsibility. Even though they twice threatened in videotapes to kill Carroll, she said: "They never hit me. They never even threatened to hit me."

She said she was kept in a furnished room with a window and a shower, but did not know where she was.

"It was difficult because I didn't know what would happen to me."

She said she was allowed to watch TV once and read a newspaper once.

Asked about her release, she said: "I don't know what happened. They just came to me early this morning and said, 'OK, we are letting you go now'."

During her in captivity, she appeared in three videos broadcast on Arab television, pleading for her life.

Her captors had demanded the release of all women detainees in Iraq by February 26 and said MsCarroll would be killed if that did not happen. The date came and went with no word about her fate.

On February 28, Iraq's Interior Minister Bayan Jabr said Ms Carroll was being held by the Islamic Army in Iraq, the insurgent group which freed two French journalists in 2004 after four months in captivity.

Ms Carroll is the fourth Western hostage to be freed in eight days. On March 23, US and British soldiers freed Briton Norman Kember, 74, and Canadians James Loney, 41, and Harmeet Singh Sooden, 32, from a house west of Baghdad.

The three had been kidnapped with an American colleague, Tom Fox, 54, on November 26. He was killed and his body dumped in Baghdad on March 9.

Reporters Without Borders said 86 journalists and media assistants have been killed in Iraq and 39 kidnapped since the war started in 2003. Three Iraqi reporters are currently being held hostage.