Kidnapped Turk freed in Iraq

A Turkish businessman who was kidnapped from a Baghdad construction site in January was freed by his captors today, a Turkish Foreign Ministry official said.

Abdulkadir Tanrikulu was at the Turkish Embassy in Baghdad, and preparations were being made for his return home, the official said.

Tanrikulu was abducted on January 13 from a construction site in Baghdad, when gunmen attacked a minibus that was coming to pick him up, killing the driver and five of his employees, all Iraqis.

Tanrikulu reportedly ran a construction company that was working with an American company.

Insurgents in Iraq have kidnapped more than 200 foreigners. At least five kidnapped Turks – most of them truck drivers – have been killed by their captors, while 36 others were freed or escaped.

Scores of Turkish truck drivers have been killed by gunmen on Iraq’s roads while transporting goods into the country.

Among those still held is another Turkish businessman, Ali Musluoglu, 48, who was kidnapped in Baghdad last month by insurgents demanding that his company stop its activities in Iraq.

In a video, Musluoglu’s captors threatened to kill him if his family’s transportation company didn’t halt its work in Iraq.