Kidnapped archbishop says Pope's plea freed him

A kidnapped Catholic archbishop was released in Iraq today, less than 24 hours after he was abducted, and said the pope’s intervention had led to his freedom.

The 66-year-old prelate said his kidnappers did not realise who he was when they seized him as he visited his flock in the northern city of Mosul.

Archbishop Basile Georges Casmoussa was back resting in his residence shortly after his 19-hour-long kidnapping ended.

“I suspected that they kidnapped me thinking I was another person,” Archbishop Casmoussa said. “They were kind with me and told me that I will be released very soon.”

It was not immediately clear if Casmoussa was wearing clerical garb when he was captured just after he came out of the home of a parishioner.

He said he thought that Pope John Paul’s strong appeal was a “decisive factor” in his release.

Shortly after the news of the abduction, the Vatican branded the abduction a “despicable terrorist act” and demanded his immediate release.

“I am truly, and, like a son, grateful to the pope, by whom I felt strongly supported in this very new situation for me,” Casmoussa said. “The kidnappers themselves told me this morning about his appeal, which I maintain was a decisive factor in my liberation.”

The pontiff, who had prayed for the bishop’s release, was informed immediately of the release, said papal spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls. “He changed his prayer to one of thanks,” he said.

A ransom had initially been demanded but the bishop was released without the payment of any money, the Vatican said.

Casmoussa, 66, is from the Syrian Catholic Church, one of the branches of the Roman Catholic Church.

Mosul has been a hotspot for the violent insurgency in recent months.

Christians make up just 3% of Iraq’s 26 million people. The major Christian groups in Iraq include Chaldean-Assyrians and Armenians. There are small numbers of Roman Catholics.

Officials estimate that as many as 15,000 Iraqi Christians have left the country since August, when four churches in Baghdad and one in Mosul were attacked in a co-ordinated series of car bombings. The attacks killed 12 people and injured 61 others.

Another church was bombed in Baghdad in September.