Archbishop condemns kidnappings of Christians
By Simon Caldwell and John Pontifex
29 August 2008

A catholic archbishop has denounced the continuing kidnappings of Christians in Iraq.

Latin-rite Archbishop Jean Sleiman of Baghdad said he would like to see the government of Iraq take more action to end such crimes.

He said he had personally received "countless" reports of kidnappings, generally undertaken to secure large ransom fees. "The media ignores this matter," he said in an interview with the British branch of Aid to the Church in Need, a Catholic charity founded to help persecuted Christians.

"It is important to ask the government to pay attention to these issues and not only the general political situation," said the archbishop, a Carmelite from Lebanon.

"It is not only Christians who are targeted but other groups. And yet the Christians feel the injustice of the situation very keenly because they have never played any part in the conflict within the country."

He said that the families and friends of hostages had often come to him to plead for his help securing their release. He added that although money was the main motive for the kidnappings, Islamic religious extremism was often an important factor, especially in the targeting of Christians.

He described how on August 19 he met a Christian man whose brother-in-law and son had been kidnapped and found dead a month later.

This, he said, came just a day after he received a visit from a woman who wanted money to help her to pay a £10,000 ransom for the release of her 19-year-old daughter.

Kidnaps have plagued the Christian minority of Iraq since the US-led invasion of 2003.

Senior clerics have often been targeted by abductors and a number of priests and bishops have been kidnapped or murdered.

They have included the Chaldean Catholic Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho of Mosul, who was found in a shallow grave in March 2008 two weeks after he was dragged from his car by armed men. The demands for his release reportedly included a £500,000 ransom.

One of the worst cases involved the 2006 kidnapping and decapitation of Fr Amer Iskander, an Orthodox priest in Mosul. His abductors had demanded a large ransom for his release.

A year earlier, the Syrian-rite Archbishop Basile Georges Casmoussa of Mosul was released following a direct plea from Pope John Paul II.

A month ago Pope Benedict XVI raised the plight of Iraqi Christians with their country's prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, during a 20-minute meeting at Castel Gandolfo, Italy.

He renewed his "condemnation of violence, which continues to strike different parts of the country almost every day without sparing the Christian communities who strongly feel the need to have greater security," the Vatican said in a written statement afterwards.

Mr Al-Maliki responded by saying the persecution of Christians would not be tolerated and he invited Iraqi Christian refugees to return home.

Archbishop Sleiman will be the guest-of-honour at an Aid to the Church in Need meeting in Westminster Cathedral on 27 September.