'Kidnap' marine set to go home

The US Marine who mysteriously vanished in Iraq and reappeared in Lebanon nearly three weeks later is doing better in a US military hospital in Germany and will probably return home within a few days.

Corporal Wassef Ali Hassoun is being debriefed at Landstuhl Regional Medical Centre by intelligence specialists, psychologists, physicians and a Muslim chaplain, who are hoping to learn more of his ordeal, said Marine spokesman Major Tim Keefe.

Hassoun, 24, disappeared on June 20 from his base near the troubled Iraqi city of Fallujah and in the three weeks that he was missing, various conflicting reports emerged about him – 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.

He turned up on July 8 at the US Embassy in Beirut, but it was unclear how he reached Lebanon and contacted American officials.

The Navy has said it is investigating whether the entire kidnapping might have been a hoax, but Keefe said the debriefing team was also conducting “survival, evasion, resistance, and escape” questioning.

Keefe said he could not provide details on what the debriefing team has already learned.

Hassoun is expected to be able to return to his home unit in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, “in a couple days”, Keefe said.