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Kidnappers demand female iraqi prisoners released { January 17 2006 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/01/17/iraq.journalist/index.htmlhttp://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/01/17/iraq.journalist/index.html
Journalist's kidnappers make demands
Video calls for release of female Iraqi prisoners within 72 hours
Tuesday, January 17, 2006; Posted: 4:42 p.m. EST (21:42 GMT)
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The kidnappers who abducted an American freelance journalist demanded Tuesday that the United States release all female Iraqi prisoners within 72 hours, according to a video aired by the Arabic-language TV network Al-Jazeera.
Journalist Jill Carroll, 28, was kidnapped January 7 in western Baghdad while on assignment for The Christian Science Monitor.
Carroll's Iraqi interpreter was killed, according to the newspaper. Her Iraqi driver escaped unharmed.
Carroll's family issued a written statement Tuesday pleading for mercy.
"Jill is an innocent journalist, and we respectfully ask that you please show her mercy and allow her to return home to her mother, sister and family," the statement said.
No one has claimed responsibility for the abduction. Al-Jazeera released no details on how it obtained the video.
Monitor editors have called for Carroll's safe release. She has been reporting from the Middle East for Jordanian, Italian and other news organizations for three years.
In their statement, Carroll's family said she "is a kind person whose love for Iraq and the Iraqi people are evident in her articles. She has been welcomed into the homes of many Iraqis and shown every courtesy.
"From that experience, she understands the hardships and suffering that the Iraqi people face every day," the statement said. "Jill is a friend and sister to many Iraqis, and has been dedicated to bringing the truth of the Iraq war to the world.
"We appeal for the speedy and safe return of our beloved daughter and sister," said the note, which was signed by her parents, Jim and Mary Beth, and her sister, Katie Carroll.
In an article published in the nonreligious, Boston-based newspaper a few days after the kidnapping, Carroll's driver said, "I saw a group of people coming as if they had come from the sky."
"One guy attracted my attention. He jumped in front of me screaming, 'Stop! Stop! Stop!' with his left hand up and a pistol in his right hand."
The driver said in the report that one of the kidnappers pulled him from the car, then drove off with it. The driver asked not to be identified.
The interpreter, Allan Enwiyah, 32, was found dead nearby, shot twice in the head, the newspaper said, citing law enforcement officials. The incident took place within 300 yards of the office of Adnan al-Dulaimi, a Sunni politician whom Carroll had planned to interview earlier that morning, the article said.
But al-Dulaimi was not there and, after 25 minutes, Carroll and her interpreter attempted to drive off, but their red Toyota Cressida was halted, the article said, citing the driver.
"It was very obvious this was by design," the driver said. "The whole operation took no more than a quarter of a minute. It was very highly organized. It was a setup, a perfect ambush."
Carroll has been working in Iraq since October 2003, and the Monitor's world news editor, David Clark Scott, has said she was not the kind of reporter to take undue risks.
Carroll is among 31 journalists kidnapped in Iraq since the beginning of the war, according to Reporters Sans Frontieres, an advocacy group based in Paris, France.
The Committee to Protect Journalists put the number of journalists kidnapped in Iraq since April 2004 at 36. Six have been killed, it said.
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