Two German engineers who were held hostage in Iraq for more than three months said they were glad to be alive after they returned home on Wednesday.
Rene Braeunlich (32) and Thomas Nitzschke (28) landed at Berlin’s Tegel airport after spending the night at the German embassy in Baghdad following their release on Tuesday.
”We are very glad to still be alive, which was not a given,” a visibly tired Nitzschke told reporters immediately after stepping from the plane.
Braeunlich said: ”We have been through a difficult time. We are very happy to be back home. Words fail me.”
Both men thanked the German foreign ministry for working to secure their release and Braeunlich also paid tribute to his family.
”They were very strong and supported me throughout,” he said.
The engineers had shaved the beards they wore in videos their captors released of them over the past three months.
The group, Ansar al-Tawheed wal Sunna (Followers of Unity and Prophetic Tradition), had threatened to kill the men unless Berlin heeded their demands.
Foreign ministry spokesperson Jens Ploetner earlier said Braeunlich and Nitzschke, both from the eastern city of Leipzig, would be flown from Berlin to a secret location ”to be reunited with their families”.
They were seized by heavily armed men as they travelled by car to an oil refinery in Baiji, 200km north of Baghdad, on January 24.
Iraq’s ambassador to Berlin said he thought a ransom had been paid to secure their release.
”I don’t know for sure, but I suspect that at the end a lot of money was paid,” Alaa Al-Hashimy told ARD television.
Der Tagesspiegel newspaper reported that Iraqi middlemen had delivered the hostages to the German embassy. But the German government refused to confirm reports of the ransom and said it would give only a few details about the engineers’ release for fear that there could be copycat kidnappings.
Deputy Foreign Minister Gernot Erler told television news channels that the government ”never had direct contact” with the captors and that the men were not freed in a military operation.
He also said Berlin was sure that the kidnappers, who had posed a series of changing demands for the Germans’ release, had acted out of criminal and not political motives. ”It was clear that this kidnapping did not have the support of politicians,” he told the N-TV news channel.
Ernot said the men had been released as a result of ”help from our friends, all of our friends, including the Americans on the ground there”.
In Leipzig there were scenes of joy as the city learnt of Braeunlich and Nitzschke’s release.
On Tuesday evening bells rang and relieved residents gathered outside the Nicholas Church, where they had held weekly candlelit vigils to pray for the hostages, to celebrate.
”This is the best news we have had all year,” said priest Christian Fuehrer.
The head of the company which had sent the two men to Iraq to install machinery spoke of his relief.
”We worried and we hoped constantly. We never gave up hope,” Cryotec boss Peter Bienert told the N24 TV news channel.
There were also reports of a ransom being paid when German archeologist and aid worker Susanne Osthoff was released in Iraq in December after being held hostage for three weeks. The German government also refused to comment on those reports.
Dozens of foreigners are being held hostage in Iraq, as well as hundreds of Iraqis kidnapped by insurgents and criminal groups. — AFP
