Two German hostages released in Iraq

Germany’s Foreign Minister said today that two German men taken hostage in Iraq more than three months ago had been released unharmed and were safe.

“I am very pleased to announce that Thomas Nitzschke and Rene Braeunlich, of Leipzig, as of today are free men again,” German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in a statement released by his ministry.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she was “very relieved and pleased” over the news of the release.

“Their families can now rejoice that they are doing well, considering the circumstances, and that everything necessary is being done to bring them safely back to Germany,” Merkel said in a televised statement.

Steinmeier, who is travelling in Chile, said the pair were in a safe place in Iraq and were being cared for by German officials there. They were expected to return to Germany tomorrow, he said.

“Based on initial information, both men are unharmed and in stable condition,” Steinmeier said.

A militant Iraqi group that identified itself in a video as the Brigade of Supporters of the Sunna and Tawhid, kidnapped the pair while they were on their way to work on Jan. 24 at a plant in the northern Iraqi city of Beiji.

Their employer, Leipzig-based Cryotec Anlagenbau AG, has a commercial relationship with an Iraqi government-owned detergent company in the industrial town of Beiji, where Brazilian engineer Joao Jose Vasconcelos Jr was kidnapped January 19, 2005. His whereabouts remain unknown.

Videos of the pair were released a couple of times, the first several days after their capture when the militants threatened to kill the two unless their demands for the German government to close its embassy in Baghdad, withdraw all German companies from Iraq and stop cooperation with the Iraqi government were met. The second video of the two was released last month.

Family members of the two and hundreds of citizens in their home city of Leipzig have held regular candlelight vigils and urged for the two to be released safely.