Released Australian hostage returns home

An Australian engineer rescued from insurgents in Baghdad arrived in his home country today and immediately apologised for his televised plea for coalition forces to withdraw from Iraq.

The world discovered Douglas Wood had been abducted on May 1 when his captors released video images showing him with automatic weapons pointed at his head as he pleaded for US, British and Australian forces to pull out of Iraq. He had been abducted a day earlier when lured to what he thought was a business meeting.