Posted on 01/21/2006 7:37:27 AM PST by jmc1969
BERLIN (Reuters) - Part of the ransom money alleged to have been paid by the German government to win the freedom of Iraq hostage Susanne Osthoff last month was found on Osthoff after her release, the German magazine Focus said on Saturday.
Without citing its sources, Focus said officials at the German embassy in Baghdad had found several thousand U.S. dollars in the 43-year-old German archaeologist's clothes when she took a shower at the embassy shortly after being freed.
The serial numbers on the bills matched those used by the government to pay off Osthoff's kidnappers, the magazine said.
Efforts to contact Osthoff for comment through her mother and a friend failed.
A spokeswoman at the German Foreign Ministry declined to comment on the report. The German government is known to have paid ransoms for hostages in the past, but has refused to comment on whether it did so for Osthoff.
(Excerpt) Read more at in.today.reuters.com ...
I think that Nick Berg thought that he could help the enemy and help himself at the same time, and bad guys weren't comfortable with that arrangement.
German press says $5 Mn was paid. As a payer of taxes in Germany, I want that b1tch in jail until we get answers.
After noting her background, I called this almost immediately as a scam.
So waht did the Herms do...slip another twenty into her burka and ask for a lap dance?
I agree with you on her working with the opposition.
Her father made a request for them to spare her life and let her work to support and report her kidnappers cause with her journalism.
I smell another demoRat.
Let me get this straight now...they found marked money stuffed in her clothing, right? That's nothing to worry about, just ask Sandy Berger about it! ha, ha, ha!!! :0 )
She sure doesn't look scared at all. Look at her eyes.
In past hostage videos, you could tell the victims were scared to death. Not this girl. Odd.
Nothing; it's exactly what it is--Osthoff scammed the German government into funding terrorism, plain and simple.
Good link -- so she was a sympathizer and now it looks like she was a participant in the scam.
I agree with blogger that this is a great comment: "Give her back ... I know that they don't give refunds but maybe the Germans can get store credit."
Someone posted some links to some of her past articles. She seemed very sympathetic to the terrorists, and hostile to our war effort. This is not to say she's not in any danger--these vermin turn on even those who are sympathetic to their cause, if it suits them.
Repeat that over and over!
No, she should be charged by our Feds or Iraq for assisting terrorists and fraud.
Time to take off the gloves.
How does one say "D'OH!" in German?
From the article: "Two days after her release, the German government freed a Hizbollah member jailed for life in 1985 for the murder of a U.S. Navy diver. Berlin has denied a connection between the two events."
Wait a second..... just exactly WHO knows these serial numbers match the ransom money?? Is this one part of the German government admitting that another branch was scammed??? Why are the Germans admitting to the world that they paid ransom money? Maybe they're pissed to find that the "hostage" they ransomed was in on the scam, but they surely shouldn't be surprised, or else they are even dumber than we thought.
I'm not the least bit surprised that the "hostage" turns out to have been part of the scam, and I'll be that's the story for that Srgena-witch (who still needs to be thoroughly investigated) and some of these others.....
What is surprising is that the German government would openly admit that it paid the ransom AND that it has been scammed.....
Good thought...it would have taken me a while to make the connection because my bulb is dim...
How did it come to pass that they were searching her clothing while she was in the shower? Who was in the room with her to find this? What was the activity in the room before the shower scene?
Something about this doesn't make sense to me.
The answer to your question, kaylar, is NO! Pure and simple, no. There is no connection between Iraq and Hammadi. Anyone claiming different has to tell me, why Hammadi was released AFTER the average jailtime for murder in Germany (he sat in for 19 years, while usually murderers are freed in Germany after 15-18 years). Secondly, I´d like to know that if Hammadi´s friends are so powerful that they got him released for a German hostage - why haven´t they tried earlier than after 19 years? I mean, there are plenty of Germans running through Arabic countries...
So, yes, 5 million US $ were the ransom money, but no, the release of a murderer in Germany is anything but unusual after 19 years in prison.
There´s a whole lot in the Osthoff case that doesn´t make sense. Her behaviour seems as if she were in bed with her captors. Look, she ran right back to Iraq after she was brought to Germany, and she has no contact to her family. She feels as if she were an Iraqi. So I say, treat her like an Iraqi, German government = don´t give a s#it about her fate!
I'd say it's a leak and it may or may not be true.
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