Outrage at revelations that Romanian journalists' kidnapping was orchestrated

Reporters Without Borders said it was "outraged" by revelations from the Bucharest prosecutor's office that the kidnapping of three Romanian journalists in Iraq may have been orchestrated by their Iraqi guide and a businessman. "We have confidence that the Romanian justice system will do its utmost to shed light on this disturbing case. They must punish all those implicated in what appears to be a put up job, in line with their wrongdoing". "These latest revelations subtract nothing from the painful ordeal of Marie-Jeanne Ion, Sorin Dumitru Miscoci and Eduard Ovidiu Ohanesian during these past 55 days", it said. The Bucharest prosecutor's office said in a release on 27 May 2005, that the kidnapping as well as the threats made by the group that held the journalists and their Iraqi guide, Mohamad Munaf, were designed to create strong emotion in Romanian public opinion that would focus attention on businessman Omar Hayssam". "He hoped to thus escape conviction in several cases in which he was accused of organised crime and numerous financial offences" said the prosecutor's office. Their accusations were based on the testimonies of nine people arrested and questioned in Baghdad, "who were directly implicated in this hostage-taking." Mohamed Munaf and Omar Hayssam are both subject of an arrest warrant for "terrorism" issued by the Bucharest appeal court, placing them in custody for a period of 29 days. This warrant was issued in the absence of Munaf, who after being released on 22 May at the same time as the Romanian hostages, is being held in Iraq by US forces. he three Romanian journalists are Marie-Jeanne Ion, 32, a reporter with the Bucharest-based television station Prima TV, Sorin Dumitru Miscoci, 30, a Prima TV cameraman, and Eduard Ovidiu Ohanesian, 37, a reporter with the privately-owned daily newspaper Romania Libera. They were kidnapped with their guide, Mohamed Munaf, five days after arriving in Iraq. On the evening of 30 March, two days after their abduction, the Qatar-based satellite TV news station Al-Jazeera broadcast a very short video showing the three journalists alive. A second, poor-quality video of the four hostages was broadcast by Al-Jazeera on 22 April. It showed the journalists handcuffed, haggard, barefoot and with guns pointed at their heads. Their abductors, who called themselves "The Brigade of Mouadh Ibn Jabal," threatened to kill them if the Romanian government did not withdraw its troops from Iraq within four days.