The parents of Nick Berg, the freelance contractor brutally murdered on video, on Thursday stepped up their campaign to expose the Pentagon’s role in their son’s final days, releasing an e-mail from a US official saying he was being detained by American troops.
Amid continued confusion about what led to Berg’s kidnapping and brutal murder, the CIA said there was a ”high probability” that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian extremist with links to al-Qaeda, was the masked man who beheaded Berg in a murder that was recorded and broadcast over the internet.
However, an eemail released by the family raises serious doubts about denials this week from the US occupation authorities that Berg was ever in American custody. It was sent to the family by a US diplomat on April 1, when the family had lost contact with their son for several days.
”I have confirmed that your son, Nick, is being detained by the US military in Mosul. He is safe. He was picked up approximately one week ago. We will try to obtain additional information regarding his detention and a contact person you can communicate with directly,” said the eemail from a consular official identified as Beth Payne. The eemail was obtained by the Associated Press.
The family argues that Berg’s fate was sealed by his detention, which delayed his departure until April, when Iraq was in chaos, and it was dangerous to travel.
Berg’s father, Michael, also demanded that the Bush administration answer claims from the killers that they had offered to trade his life for Iraqi prisoners.
”If that is true… I think the people of the United States of America need to know what the fate of their sons and daughters might be in the hands of the Bush administration,” he said.
The US authorities vigorously denied holding Berg, who had travelled to Iraq in the hope of finding contract work putting up communications antennae.
Dan Senor, a spokesperson for the coalition provisional authority in Baghdad, said FBI officials had visited Berg in an Iraqi cell in Mosul, but insisted the American had never been in US custody.
However, the Iraqi police chief in Mosul told CNN his forces had detained Berg, but released him within hours to the US military.
Amid the dispute, the horror at Berg’s killing continued to reverberate around the world on Thursday, with sworn enemies of the US such as Hizbullah and Hamas condemning the murder.
The video shows Berg (26) from Philadelphia, sitting in an orange jumpsuit in front of five masked and armed men. One of them speaks to the camera declaring that Berg’s killing was in revenge for the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US guards at Abu Ghraib. The same man draws a long knife and cuts off Berg’s head. The video was titled: ”Sheikh Abu Musab al-Zarqawi slaughters an American infidel with his own hands.”
Despite initial doubts about the killer’s accent, a CIA official said that a technical analysis of the video had shown it was very likely to be Zarqawi, a Jordanian-born ethnic Palestinian, who is believed to be masterminding attacks on coalition targets in Iraq in the name of al-Qaeda.
Zarqawi’s presence in Iraq before the war and his suspected links with Osama bin Laden were cited by US officials as among the justifications for the invasion last March. However, his links to the Saddam regime were never corroborated.
More recently US forces claimed to have intercepted a letter from Zarqawi to the al-Qaeda leadership, calling for help in the battle against coalition forces in Iraq.
He is also believed to have organised the shooting of an American diplomat, Laurence Foley, two years ago in Amman, Jordan. The reference to him as a ”sheikh” on the video recording suggests he is attempting to present himself as a leader in his own right.
The website which broadcast the execution video, www.al-ansar.biz, was closed down on Thursday by the Malaysian company which runs the server that hosted it.
The Saudi ambassador to the US, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, called the murder ”criminal and inhuman”, a description echoed around much of the Arab world. – Guardian Unlimited Â