Freed Romanian journalists to rejoin families

Three journalists who returned to Romania after nearly two months in captivity in Iraq will be allowed home today after spending three days in quarantine, the president’s office said.

Prima TV reporter Marie Jeanne Ion, her cameraman Sorin Miscoci, and newspaper reporter Ovidiu Ohanesian arrived back in Romania on Monday after being held hostage for 55 days in Iraq.

Romanian authorities kept the three incommunicado for three days in a secret location.

The three journalists will rejoin their families during a meeting with President Traian Basescu this evening, Basescu’s office said in a statement.

“I received a phone call from (presidential adviser) Claudiu Saftoiu, who said that we can take them home,” Ohanesian’s sister, Anne Marie Ohanesian told news television Realitatea TV.

The families have expressed their eagerness to rejoin their loved ones in recent interviews in the Romanian press.

The journalists’ Iraqi-American guide and translator, Mohammed Monaf was also freed on Monday, but Romanian authorities turned him over to US custody in Baghdad.

He has been stopped from returning to his wife and children in Romania as US authorities held him for interviews about possible attacks against coalition forces in Iraq.

The US embassy in Bucharest has said it would try to facilitate contacts between Monaf and his family in Romania.

On Sunday, a group calling itself Maadh Bin Jabal said in a videotape aired on Al-Jazeera television that it decided to free the hostages after an appeal by Romania’s Muslims and a Saudi preacher, Salman Bin Fahad al-Oda.

Basescu said Romanian authorities had refused kidnappers’ demands that the country’s 860 troops be pulled out of Iraq, insisting Bucharest would not negotiate its foreign policy or pay a ransom. More details about the release would be available after an investigation was complete, he said.

Basescu is riding a wave of popularity after the release. He has said that Romanian intelligence officials and the country’s anti-terrorist troops should take credit for winning the journalists’ freedom.