Marine Hassoun recovers in hospital

A US Marine, who resurfaced in Lebanon nearly three weeks after he vanished in a reported kidnapping in Iraq, is doing well and recovering at a US military hospital in Germany, a Marine spokesman said today.

Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun “has had a full night’s sleep and some breakfast. He’s up and awake now, and he has been given telephone cards and access to a phone,” said Maj. Tim Keefe, who visited Hassoun this morning.

Hassoun is expected to remain at Landstuhl Regional Medical Centre, where he is being debriefed and evaluated by doctors, until early next week, said hospital spokeswoman Marie Shaw.

He will then return to his home unit in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, Keefe said.

Hassoun arrived in Germany on Friday night from Lebanon, where he turned up at the US Embassy in Beirut on Thursday.

The 24-year-old had been missing since June 20 from his base near the troubled Iraqi city of Fallujah.

Over the last three weeks, various conflicting reports emerged about Hassoun - first that he was beheaded, then that he was alive.

Arab television on June 27 showed a videotape of him with his eyes covered by a white blindfold and a sword hanging over his head.

The Navy is now investigating whether the entire kidnapping might have been an elaborate ruse.

Doctors who evaluated him on his arrival at Landstuhl said he was in excellent physical condition but had lost about 20 pounds.

Keefe said military investigators are not expected to question Hassoun at Landstuhl.

“At this point he is a patient. We have to learn the facts before anything is done,” Keefe said, adding that it might be some time before the details of Hassoun’s mysterious story are known.

“I don’t think it’s going to come out for quite a while, and that could mean several days or several weeks,” he said.