Seven hostages freed after $500,000 ransom paid

SEVEN truck drivers held hostage in Iraq since July were freed yesterday after a $500,000 (€411,000) ransom was paid.

The men arrived at Kuwait’s international airport after their company paid Iraqi militants the cash to secure their release.

The freed hostages, three Kenyans, three Indians and an Egyptian, were hugged and presented with flowers by staff of the company, Kuwait Gulf Link Transport.

KGL chief executive Said Dashti said the men were freed after a team of company employees drove under armed guard to an unspecified location in Iraq where the drivers were being held to pay the ransom. “The kidnappers were not trying to make a political statement, they were purely extortionists,” Mr Dashti said.

Asked if he thought paying ransom money will encourage more kidnappings and terrorism, Mr Dashti said: “Yes, but I had no other choice, the drivers are human beings and we were trying to save their lives.”

The mens’ release came as Muslims worldwide united behind calls for the release of two French journalists captured by a separate group demanding that France revoke a controversial head scarf law. France has refused to scrap the law, which takes effect this week.

Journalists Christian Chesnot, of Radio France International, and Georges Malbrunot, who disappeared August 19 on their way from Baghdad to the southern city of Najaf. Their Syrian chauffeur also vanished. A shadowy group calling itself the Islamic Army of Iraq claims to be holding them.

Diverse groups ranging from the militant Islamic Hamas, to Sunni and Shi’ite Iraqi religious leaders have issued calls on behalf of the French hostages in a show of support not seen previously even though more than 100 hostages have been seized in recent months in Iraq.

Also yesterday, gunmen opened fire on a convoy carrying former Iraqi Governing Council member Ahmad Chalabi as he returned from Najaf to attend the first meeting of Iraq’s 100-member National Council.

The council was formally sworn in yesterday at a ceremony in the Baghdad convention centre, which was also marred by a nearby mortar barrage that injured one person inside the heavily guarded Green Zone enclave, the US military said.

Mr Chalabi said the attack on his convoy was apparently an assassination attempt and wounded two bodyguards.

Iraqi oil officials, meanwhile, said Iraq’s southern oil terminals are fully operational and exports are running at between 1.7 million and 1.9 million barrels a day, despite sabotage attacks on pipelines last week.

In Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, three Iraqi women who worked at a US base were shot dead late on Tuesday and a mortar barrage killed another civilian, police said.