Kidnap victims reappear on tape

The kidnap victims were trying to find evidence of prisoner abuse by the U.S.
CHICAGO TRIBUNE
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- The four kidnapped members of the Chicago-based Christian Peacemaker Teams appeared in a videotape Saturday that included a threat from their captors to kill them unless all prisoners are freed from Iraqi and American jails.
The videotape, dated Jan. 21 and aired by Al-Jazeera television, showed the four men -- an American, a Briton and two Canadians -- standing against a wall, looking thinner, paler and more haggard than they were in the previous videotape shown of them in November.
All had grown beards and long hair and were seen to be speaking to the camera, although the videotape had no audio, in common with other hostage videotapes issued recently.
An accompanying statement in the name of a group called the Swords of Righteousness said all prisoners in Iraq must be freed in return for the release of the hostages, "or else their fate will be execution," according to Al-Jazeera. The statement described the threat as a "final ultimatum" but set no deadline.
Tom Fox, 54, of Clear Brook, Va.; Norman Kember, 74, of London; and Canadians James Loney, 41, and Harmeet Singh Sooden, 32, were abducted from their car on a Baghdad street Nov. 26. They have not been heard from since a Dec. 10 deadline for their execution passed.
In a statement, the Christian Peacemaker Teams said the group was "grateful and heartened to see James, Harmeet, Norman and Tom alive. This news is an answer to our prayers."
What group was doing
The peace activist group had maintained a presence in Iraq since the invasion and was focusing its efforts on unearthing evidence of prisoner abuse by U.S. forces.
In the last videotape released, on Dec. 8, two of the hostages, Fox and Kember, were shown blindfolded, shackled and wearing the orange jumpsuits that kidnappers have in the past dressed their captives in before killing them.
Their abductions marked the beginning of a fresh spate of foreign hostage taking in Iraq in which at least a dozen foreigners have been seized in the past two months, three of them Americans.