FEBRUARY 2005

IRAQ today
Freed Archbishop Says Kidnappers
Didn’t Realize Who He Was
VATICAN CITY/AP
ACatholic archbishop kidnapped
in Iraq was released the next
day without payment of ransom,
the Vatican said. The prelate said his
kidnappers didn’t realize who he was
when they abducted him on January 17
in the northern city of Mosul.
Archbishop Basile Georges
Casmoussa was back resting in his
home shortly after his 19-hour-long kidnapping
ended and told Vatican Radio
he had not been mistreated.
``I suspected that they kidnapped
me thinking I was another person,’’
Casmoussa told reporters in Mosul.
``They were kind with me and told me
that I will be released very soon.’’
It was not clear if Casmoussa was
wearing clerical garb when he was
captured just after he came out of the
home of a parishioner that Monday
evening in Mosul.
Casmoussa was quoted as telling
the Italian news agency ANSA that he
thought Pope John Paul II’s strong
appeal on his behalf was a ``decisive
factor’’ in his release. The Vatican had
called the abduction a ``despicable terrorist
act’’ and demanded that the kidnappers
free him immediately.
``I am truly, and, like a son, grateful
to the pope, by whom I felt strongly
supported in this very new situation for
me,’’ Casmoussa was quoted as telling
ANSA. ``The kidnappers themselves
told me this morning about his appeal,
which I maintain was a decisive factor
in my liberation.’’
The pontiff, who had prayed for the
bishop’s release, was informed immediately
of the good news, said papal
spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls. ``He
changed his prayer to one of thanks,’’
he said.
The kidnappers initially demanded a
$200,000 ransom but then released the
bishop without any payment, the
Vatican said.
Casmoussa, a 66-year-old Iraqi, is
from the Syrian Catholic Church, one
of the branches of the Roman Catholic
Church.
A priest in Iraq said on condition of
anonymity that the archbishop was
walking in front of the Al-Bishara
church in Mosul’s eastern neighborhood
of Muhandeseen when gunmen
“I am truly, and
like a son, grateful
to the pope.”
— ARCHBISHOP CASMOUSSA
forced him into a car and drove away.
Mosul, in Iraq’s north, has been a
hotspot for the violent insurgency in
recent months.
``I think that my kidnapping was a
coincidence,’’ the archbishop told
Vatican Radio. ``It doesn’t seem to me
that they wanted to strike at the Church
per se.’’
Navarro-Valls said the Vatican didn’t
view the kidnapping as an anti-
Christian act but part of the general climate
of violence in Iraq. He said the
archbishop was well-loved in the community
.
Basile Georges
Casmoussa, 66,
the Archbishop of the
Syrian Catholic Church,
sits in a chair after
he arrived back to the
church in Mosul, some
360 kilometers,
(225 miles) north of
Baghdad, on Jan. 18.
PHOTO BY AP
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32 CHALDEAN NEWS FEBRUARY 2005