Iraq Hostages and MIAs. April - June 12 2004

A compilation of some of the persons who have been taken hostage so far in Iraq.

Please post corrections or additions.


April 7 2004
Two Germans, security agents from the German Embassy in Baghdad , were attacked April 7 while driving from Jordan to Baghdad. They are reported to be GSG-9, an elite counterterrorism unit trained for freeing hostages and other commando missions.
On May 1 2004, they announced the body of one of the men was found. The other is also presumed to be dead.
news.com.au

April 8, 2004

Seven South Koreans were taken hostage.
The men held the Koreans for nine hours and freed them when they learned they were missionaries.
They were evangelists from the Christian Council of Korea
Fox News

Three Japanese, two journalists and an aid worker, Noriaki Imai, 18, Nahoko Takato, 34, and Soichiro Koriyama, 32.
Their captors, Saraya al-Mujahideen (Mujahideen Brigades), aired video of them and demanded Japan withdraw its 550 ground troops.
They were released on April 15, 2004
The Japanese government charged the hostages $7,000 each for travel and other expenses.

Aljazeera

A British citizen, Gary Teeley, who lives in the Middle East, was taken hostage and released on April 12 2004 Al-Jazeera said Mr Teeley had been freed "with the help of Arab tribes in the region".
www.abovetopsecret.com..." target='_blank' class='tabOff'/>
BBC

Rifat Mohammed Rifat, an Iraqi man living in Toronto Canada, was working for a Saudi Arabian firm doing reconstruction at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad. He disappeared after leaving home in a company vehicle for work at the jail. He is believed to be held by an unknown group. He has still not been released.

Globe and Mail

Nabil George Razuq and Fadi Fadel were taken hostage.
Their captors released footage of them on Iranian TV and demanded the release of prisoners.

Nabil George Razuq, 30, Palestinian Christian from East Jerusalem, was working for RTI, a North Carolina-based company given a USAID contract to "provide local governance support in postwar Iraq." when he was taken hostage by Ansar al-Din. He was released April 22 2004

Fadi Fadel, 33, a Syrian-born Canadian, an aid worker for the International Rescue Committee in Najaf, was kidnapped by a group called Ansar al-Din
He was freed April 16 2004
edition.cnn.com..." target="_blank" class="postlink" rel="nofollow">CNN

April 9 2004
Two American soldiers and seven employees of U.S. contractor Kellogg, Brown & Root were missing after a 24-vehicle convoy was ambushed near Abu Ghraib, west of Baghdad.

Pfc. Keith M. Maupin, 20, of Batavia, Ohio was taken hostage and as of May 16, he still remains a hostage. Footage of his capture was released and offers were made to exchange him for prisoners.

BBC

Sgt. Elmer C. Krause, 40, of Greensboro, N.C was the other soldier. On April 23 his remains were recovered.

Fox News

Thomas Hamill of Macon, Mississippi, was abducted in the same attack.
Footage of his capture was broadcast on TV. Another tape is made after his capture that shows him in front of an Iraq flag.
"Our only demand is to remove the siege from the city of mosques," one kidnapper said.
Hamill escaped May 2 2004


BBC

The bodies of four(?) KBR employees were later found in a shallow grave near the site of the ambush on April 13 and two others, Timothy E. Bell and William Bradley are still missing.

April 10 2004
Nick Berg was detained on April 24 2004 and not released until May 6 2004 following a law suit by his parents demanding his release.
His last contact with his family was on April 9, his last contact with US officials was on April 10.
His body is found by a bridge on May 8 2004.
On May 11 2004, video is released that shows him being brutally beheaded.

BBC


April 11 2004
Seven Chinese men were kidnapped by gunmen while they had been traveling from Jordan to Baghdad They were released April 12 2004.
CNN

Three Czechs, Television reporter Michal Kubal, cameraman Petr Klima and Czech Radio correspondent Vit Pohanka were kidnapped on their way from Baghdad to Amman, Jordan, where they planned to catch a flight back to Prague. They were released on April 16 after Czech Ambassador to Iraq Martin Klepetko met Sunni clerics and handed over a letter from Czech Muslims.
Prague Post
www.abovetopsecret.com..." target='_blank' class='tabOff'/>

A Bulgarian born French photographer, Alexandre Jordanov was kidnapped.
He was released on April 14 2004

His cameraman, Ivan Serieix, was also kidnapped the same day as Alexandre and released the next day, April 12 2004.
BBC

Henrik Frandsen, from Denmark was kidnapped during a highway robbery on a road near Taji, outside Baghdad.
He had traveled to Iraq in connection with a water treatment business.
His body was found on April 12.
BBC

Nine truck drivers, 3 from Pakistan, 2 from Turkey and 1 each from India, Nepal and the Philippines, were shown on Arab television. They were later released.


April 12 2004
Eight Interenergoservis employees were abducted. Five were Russian and three from the Ukraine.
Alexander Rybinsky, Interenergoservis' executive director, said that unidentified, masked gunmen had broken into a house in Baghdad where the company's employees were resting. He said the abductors released one of their nine victims immediately.
"They put them all in a car and drove away," Rybinsky said in a telephone interview earlier Tuesday. "The abductors haven't put up any demands."
They were released the following day.
WLA

Four Italians were abducted outside Baghdad by a group calling itself the Green Battalion.
Umberto Cupertino, Salvatore Stefio and Maurizio Agliana and Fabrizio Quattrocchi were working for a private U.S. security firm, DTS Security..
They had been shown on a tape aired on April 13, when kidnappers demanded the withdrawal of Italian troops from Iraq.
Fabrizio Quattrocchi ,36, was executed with a pistol on April 15 2004 after the Italian government refused to comply.

The three remaining Italian hostages were released on June 8, 2004 after a raid by US Special Forces.
www.abovetopsecret.com..." target='_blank' class='tabOff'/>
www.abovetopsecret.com..." target='_blank' class='tabOff'/>
BBC
Boston.com - hostages freed

April 14 2004
Two Japanese, Jumpei Yasuda and Nobutaka Watanabe, were taken hostage.
They were freed on April 17

Boston Herald

April 20 2004
Swiss officials say two of its citizens employed by non-governmental organizations in Iraq were freed after two days of detainment by an unknown group.
NZZ.ch

April 28 2004
A wealthy Iraqi-born Canadian, Naji al-Kuwaiti had been in Iraq trying to establish an import-export business when he was kidnapped.
His captors phoned his wife in Canada and demanded payment for his release.
He was released on May 4 after his captors were reportedly paid $100,000 US.
The Australian

May 3 2004
Aban Elias, a 41-year-old Denver resident, was taken hostage near Fallujah by the Islamic Anger Brigades. He had been in Iraq for about a year running a gravel operation to help rebuild roads. He has not yet been released.
USA Today
www.abovetopsecret.com..." target='_blank' class='tabOff'/>

May 10 2004
Two Russians are taken hostage and another was killed.
The groups responsible is calling itself �The Victorious Sect� (Jaish al-Ta'ifa al-Mansoura)
The Russian experts who worked on a contract in Iraq were taken hostage on the way from Al-Mussaib to Baghdad last Monday. They had helped restoring a power station in Al-Mussaib, 50 kilometres to the south from Baghdad.
Alexei Konorev, 44, who had arrived in Iraq from the Sverdlovsk region on May 2 got killed in the incident. Alexander Gordiyenko, 28, from Stavropol and Andrei Mescheryakov, 34, from Kazan were kidnapped.
They were released on May 17 2004 after work by the Russian embassy in Baghdad and Iraqi political and religious figures.
www.abovetopsecret.com..." target='_blank' class='tabOff'/>
BBC

May 21 2004
Fran Sevilla, 44, a Spanish National Radio correspondent, was taken hostage.
He was intercepted by a group of militants of the Shiite leader al-Sadr.
He was released hours later.

abc.net.au

May 25 2004
Three NBC journalists and an Iraqi freelancer were taken captive.
NBC identified the four as correspondent Ned Colt, cameraman Maurice Roper, soundman Robert Colvill and freelance Iraqi journalist Ashraf Al Taie. They were released three days later after local Iraqi leaders helped mediate with "armed Iraqis," who let the reporters go "after their identities as working journalists became clear."
The group's Tuesday capture was never announced for security reasons, NBC said.
USA Today

June 1 2004
Two Polish contractors, three Kurdish security guards and two locally-hired female technical employees were taken hostage.
One of the Polish men, Radoslaw Kadri, escaped. The second Polish man, Jerzy Kos, an employee of construction firm Wroc�awska Jedynka, was rescued by US special forces and Polish troops on June 8 2004.. Three Italians who were taken hostage in April were also released that day. Krzysztof Baszniak of Jedynka's management stated that the kidnapping of the Polish men was planned by an ex-employee of Jedynka, Abu Media.
IC Wales
Boston.com

June 2 2004
An Egyptian Man, Victor Tawfiq Jerges, and a Turk, Bulent Yanik, were taken hostage. They were drivers for ESS, formerly known as Eurest Support Services, is a food supplier to the U.S. military in Iraq and a division of Britain-based Compass Group.
AP

June 8 2004

Seven men working for Serka, a Turkish construction company carrying out projects for the US-led coalition in Iraq, were taken by the "United Iraq Armed Resistance". They showed four of the men in video footage. The four abducted Turks were identified as Tarkan Suleyman Arak, Ali Nuri Cesur, Erdal Belgin and Ozhan Karatas. They demanded the Muslim Turkish People to refuse to cooperate with the occupation forces and to cancel contracts and withdraw their personnel from Iraq.

The seven were released on June 12 2004

Sign on Sandiego

June 10 2004
"Hussein Olayyan, from south Lebanon , and two Iraqis ... disappeared Thursday in the area around Fallujah,"
Some drivers found their bodies brutally mutilated on the roadside between Baghdad and Jordan on Friday, June 11.
Islam Online

Related ATS links:
Japanese, British, Canadian, South Korean & Israeli Civilians Held Hostage in Iraq


[Edited on 21-5-2004 by AceOfBase]


[Edited on 28-5-2004 by AceOfBase]

[edit on 8-6-2004 by AceOfBase]



[edit on 12-6-2004 by AceOfBase]

Another hostage taken:

ABC.net.au
A Spanish radio journalist is being held in the Iraqi city of Najaf by a Shiite group linked to rebel cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, state radio reported on Friday.

Spanish National Radio said its correspondent Fran Sevilla, who reported the Spanish troops' withdrawal from their base at Diwaniya earlier on Friday, was unharmed but his telephone was about to be confiscated.

"He was intercepted by a group of militants of the Shiite leader al-Sadr. He phoned to say where he was, in a mosque in Najaf, and that they were going to take away his phone," state radio editor Javier Arenas told the radio.

"He is physically fine."

The Spanish Government said in a statement it had "begun intense efforts to put an end to this situation as soon as possible".

What's the point in taking someone from a country that is already pulling out?

UPDATE: He has been released:
www.ledger-enquirer.com...

[Edited on 21-5-2004 by AceOfBase]

thanks for compiling the list AceofBase, great work.

now if only a method to the madness could be formulated we might be able to draw a better conclusion on the more famous kidnapping case of Berg.