Christian peace worker, Norman Kember has spoken out in detail about his ordeal as he was taken hostage in Iraq with others from the Christian peace organisation.
Kember, 74, from north-west London, was held hostage in Baghdad for four months before finally being rescued on 23 March. The Baptist worker wept as he reported on BBC Radio 4 how British special forces called out for “Mr Kember” as they rescued him and his two Canadian colleagues.Passionately Kember spoke about his fellow American Peacemaker, Tom Fox, 54, who was killed before the rescue, and he described him as a “remarkable man”.
Describing how they were abducted, Kember said, “We got in our car, the four of us with a driver and a translator, and we were just driving out towards the main road when a car stopped in front of us.”
“Out popped four men with guns, pushed out the driver and the translator and took over the car and told Jim to lie on the floor and pointed guns at us, and off we were driven.
”It was sort of an odd feeling, 'Is this actually happening to me?' It seemed unreal. I do not think I was frightened. It was just unreal, 'This is what a kidnap is all about'.
“They drove us not very far but tried to throw us off the scent - where we were - by driving round the block three or four times. I remember seeing the same boys playing football twice,” Kember said.
He said they were then “driven through a big iron gate and into a fairly secure house. We were taken in, sat down, and we were handcuffed fairly soon after that.“We were sat as a row, either four of us or three of us, handcuffed together, and that is where we sat for about 12 hours a day.”
Kember said they were held in a room with a window that was closed, except in the morning when the captors would “open the window a bit to let some fresh air in.
