French journalist Georges Malbrunot, who was released just before Christmas after four months in captivity in Iraq, saw in the new year at his parents’ home in the south of France with tears in his eyes and a sense of relief that he was not British.
‘On Planet Bin Laden, they look first at your nationality. Had we been British – or from another coalition country – we would have been decapitated within days.’
Malbrunot, 41, and Christian Chesnot, 37, were released by the Salafist Islamic Army on 22 December after 124 days of threats from their captors, false hopes of freedom, US shelling and secret negotiations – but allegedly no ransom payment – by the French government.
‘We never saw the faces of our captors,’ said Malbrunot, who reports for the conservative Le Figaro. ‘They wore balaclavas. One day, one of them, who boasted that he had been trained in Afghanistan at one of ”Sheikh Osama’s” camps, told us not to be troubled by the balaclavas. ”It means I am not going to kill you. If I was going to kill you, I would have bared my face to you right away,” he told us.’
Malbrunot believes they weren’t killed – as Ken Bigley and Margaret Hassan were – because they were French. ‘Knowing the way the British authorities abandon their subjects when they are in trouble abroad, we were fortunate. We never doubted that everything was being done, albeit in secret, to secure our release,’ he said.
‘It stirs you up to realise, in restrospect, you came very, very close to death. I cried the other day in Baghdad, when French diplomats gave us their summary of our 124 days in captivity. It included two 48-hour ultimatums on our lives we never knew about. It is moving to realise the extent to which the whole of France, its government, its Muslims, and probably many influential people in the Arab world rallied to our cause.’
Malbrunot and Chesnot – who reports for Radio France Internationale – were abducted with their driver on 20 August when on the road from Baghdad to Najaf their car was cut off by two Mercedes. Seven or eight armed men tore open the doors and blindfolded them.
Chesnot and Syrian-born driver Muhammed al-Jundi, 52, were bundled into the back seat of a car and Malbrunot into the boot. When the car stopped at a farm that was the first of several hiding places, the abductors waved a photograph in front of the three men and asked what it meant. ‘They had found the picture in the car. It was a photo-montage showing al-Jundi’s 18-year-old son – a computer enthusiast – with Brigadier-General Mark Kimmitt, the US military’s senior spokesman in Iraq. It was a joke, but it nearly cost us our lives.’
The three men were held in a hut for a week, sleeping on the floor, using a hole as a toilet and being fed rice, dates, beans and bread. They saw other abductees, most of whom were later killed. Fereydun Jahani, an Iranian consul, was to be released, but two Macedonians were beheaded after two months, as was a bodyguard for Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmad Chalabi.
‘We heard them interrogate an Iraqi hostage working on an electricity plant. They divide hostages into two categories – those who are to be executed and those worth entering into negotiations over. Our interrogator was known as Fatso; he introduced himself as the chief intelligence officer of the Islamic Army. He was a former intelligence agent for Saddam.
‘Fatso’s job was to grill us and put the evidence before a tribunal presided over by a sheikh. The tribunal apparently decided we were worth negotiating over, and on 2 September Christian and I were moved to a ”better place” – a ground-floor room, about 45 minutes’ drive from the farm.’ The driver was released.
As the two journalists were moved, in ‘cardboard coffins hidden in the back of a van’, France launched a high-profile round of ‘turban diplomacy’ in the Middle East, supported by French Muslim leaders. Al-Jazeera television showed a video of the two pleading for their lives, and their captors demanded that the French rescind the ban on headscarves in schools.
‘We had no knowledge of the Islamic Army before they captured us. But we developed a picture of an organisation with money, contacts in Europe and a double agenda – to fight the occupation and wage a jihad as preached by Bin Laden. They were well-equipped, convinced that the West is waging war against the Muslim faith, and would boast of their offensives against the Americans. At the same time they were inexperienced enough to leave scraps of paper lying around that gave us clues as to where we were and what was to happen to us.’
On 18 September they were told to record the third of nine videos for the French hostage negotiators. Only two were seen by the men’s relatives and only one – that on al-Jazeera – was seen by the French public. ‘They included close-ups of our legs and arms to prove nothing had been amputated.’
Malbrunot says ‘something went wrong’ around that date. ‘We were told we were about to be released and it never happened. We were moved again – this time to an Islamic Army base about 130km north-west of Baghdad, maybe at Samara. We had a terrifying time because we were at the centre of intense fighting. We could hear US tanks drive past maybe 40 metres away.’ In mid-November, the men were moved back to ‘the farm’.
Malbrunot believes French official claims that no ransom was paid. ‘On 18 September we begged to be told why we were being held for so long. They said an intermediary had offered $1 million for our release, but they were not interested in money. They wanted high-level contacts with the French government.’
Malbrunot is now battling with highs and lows of emotion. ‘I would like to tell my British friends in the profession to stay out of Iraq, it’s not worth it. These guys will do a Google search on you, and then you will be killed. You are a walking target.’ – Guardian Unlimited Â