British Envoy in Iraq Still Hopeful of Hostage Release

A British Muslim envoy currently in Iraq to help free the four kidnapped Christian Peacemaker Teams workers said Wednesday it was still hopeful the men would be released, reports CNews.

|TOP|Anas Altikriti travelled to Iraq to meet Sunni Muslim leaders and appeal for the release of the hostages. He said the lack of communication since the deadline had made him “slightly more hopeful”.

“The likelihood is that, had there been action taken against the hostages, we would have heard about it by now,” he said.

Altikriti said the hostage-takers could be “looking for a way out without losing face”.

“The other explanation is that they may be hoping for the next 24 to 48 hours to use the Iraqi elections one way or another,” he said.

Iraqis will hit the polling stations on Thursday. “Whether they would use that to release the hostages – or otherwise, God forbid – we can’t say,” he said.

|QUOTE|Nothing has been heard of the fate of the four men nor of their kidnappers, the previously unknown Swords of Righteousness Brigade, who had threatened to kill the men if the U.S. and Britain did not release all detainees in Iraq since Saturday’s deadline for their execution passed without compromise from the UK and U.S. governments.

A terror suspect, radical cleric Abu Qatada, currently detained in Full Sutton jail near York, made an appeal last week to the kidnappers to free the men “in line with the principle of mercy of our religion”.

A British former prisoner of Guantanamo Bay, Moazzam Begg, also called for the release of the hostages, telling BBC Newsnight that seeing Mr Kember in an orange jumpsuit reminded him and his fellow ex-inmates of their ordeal at the U.S. base in Cuba.

Briton Norman Kember, 74, James Loney, 41, of Toronto, Harmeet Singh Sooden, 32, formerly of Montreal, and American Tom Fox, 54, were abducted in Iraq after travelling to the country with CPT, a Canadian-based international peace group.