Jordan Times
Thursday, August 12, 2004
Kidnappers release citizen
By Khalid Dalal
AMMAN — Kidnappers on Wednesday released Jordanian businessman Taha Maharmeh,
who was recently abducted in Iraq, his brother said.
Mohammad Maharmeh told The Jordan Times that he received a telephone call from
his 48-year-old brother, who works for a Danish food firm, at 3:30pm, saying
that he was released.
He said his brother was expected to arrive in Jordan today, adding that the
hostage's release was the result of negotiations between a Jordanian man and the
kidnappers, who were paid a ransom. He gave no further details.
Another brother of Maharmeh, Yassin, was quoted by Agence France-Presse as
saying that the father of four children was kidnapped last Saturday but it was
only on Tuesday the news became known.
The Foreign Ministry was informed of the release by the family, according to its
spokesperson Ali Ayed, who said the government was still following up on the
abduction of Jamal Saliemeh.
Saliemeh was reportedly kidnapped on Monday from his residence in Baghdad's
Seediyeh district by a group that demanded a $250,000 ransom. Saliemeh's family
said they had no information on the situation of the 63-year-old father of
three, who has been working since 1994 in Iraq as an agent for a Korean tyre
company.
According to the Associated Press, the ministry has said it is investigating the
fate of another Jordanian, Wael Qushha, whose family has reported that he was
kidnapped in the southern Iraqi city of Basra four months ago. Qushha worked for
the Basra-based British firm International Support Services (ISS).
Qushha's brother Talal told the AP on Tuesday that ISS informed him on April 12
that his brother had been taken by seven armed men who assaulted Rashid Hotel in
Basra three days earlier.
Two other families told local newspapers that their sons, truck drivers Mohammad
Suleiman and Wael Abul-Hawaeij, had been kidnapped in Iraq.
Seven Jordanians kidnapped in July in Iraq have been released over the past two
weeks, among them a businessman who paid a ransom. The others, all truck
drivers, were freed through Iraqi “mediators.”