Posted on 07/10/2004 9:05:36 PM PDT by saquin
A US marine who disappeared in Iraq, was filmed being threatened with a sword and was later reported to have been beheaded is in excellent physical condition without a mark on him, according to doctors treating him after he reappeared at the American embassy in Beirut.
Corporal Wassef Ali Hassoun, who is of Lebanese origin and was missing for 19 days, had lost 20lb and appeared to be exhausted when he arrived at Ramstein air base in Germany for the start of what promises to be a long debriefing.
He told a psychologist at the base that he had slept for only two or three hours a night during his ordeal. Peter Marco, a US navy doctor who examined him, said: “There are no physical bruises on his body.”
The navy was reported to be investigating whether Hassoun may have deserted his unit and fallen into the hands of a kidnap gang who spared his life because he is a Muslim, or whether the entire episode was an elaborate hoax.
According to a report in the American press, intelligence agencies picked up mobile phone conversations involving a man investigators thought was Hassoun before and shortly after he disappeared.
Relatives in Lebanon and the United States have insisted he was an innocent victim, but have declined to explain how he became separated from his comrades in Iraq.
This weekend the confusion surrounding Hassoun was compounded when it emerged that even his romantic entanglements were anything but straightforward.
He had asked the parents of Nichole Merzi, an 18-year-old girlfriend in California, to promise her to him. But during the time he was courting her in America he was married by proxy to a cousin in Lebanon.
The 24-year-old marine is expected to return to America later this week.
A separate hostage drama was unfolding last night as the kidnappers of a Philippine truck driver extended their deadline by 24 hours. The government in Manila had indicated it would withdraw its 51 peacekeepers in Iraq as scheduled on August 20. However, the militant group holding him reiterated their threat to behead their hostage unless the Philippines pledged to complete the pullout by July 20.
Kidnappers from a different group threatened to kill two Bulgarian hostages yesterday unless the US released all Iraqi detainees within 24 hours. The Bulgarians, both lorry drivers, were kidnapped on their way to the northern city of Mosul.
They were feared to have fallen into the hands of the al-Tawhid and Jihad group run by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian militant who tops the coalition’s most wanted list.
Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general, called for the release of the hostages, describing them as “innocent civilians who may have been abducted for political ends in the conflict”.
In other incidents, three Iraqis died and five were injured yesterday as insurgents clashed with American marines in the resistance hotbed of Ramadi, west of Baghdad. North of Baghdad, in Baqouba, rebels blew up three stores selling alcohol. A taxi driver died in one of the blasts.
So9
If he truly is a deserter, he needs to be either shot or spend the rest of his life (no parole) doing hard labor (if there is still such a thing in prison) at Levenworth.
That's kind iffy on the proxy marriage.
I know this bizarre person who converted to Islam after she began dating a Pakistani. She is the divorced daughter of a Baptist Minister with 2 sons around the age of 10. About half of his family lives in Pakistan. The families hate each other and the what-ever of their children.
The entire time they were dating, his family was busy trying to arrange a marriage for him in Pakistan to keep him away from the formerly Baptist female.
Well it didn't work and they got married despite the best efforts of their respective families.
The only upside is the female dresses modestly, quit drinking and is no longer out trolling for men in the local bars. Oh, yeah, she met her Muslim in a bar.
May have been? This guy marginalizes himself every time he opens his mouth.
Why do the idiots never get shot, kidnapped or disappear?? Kofi Annan would do world a favor if he just went home, and never came back.
I wouldn't be surprised to find out one of Annan's clerks faxed out a boiler-plate statement to the press without his knowledge...
Boss Kofi must be extremely busy these days -- what with arranging "accidents" for investigators of the UN-Iraqi oil scam, and reviewing his Swiss bank statements...
An honest Muslim will tell you that there are no Muslim-Americans, just Muslims in our infidel country. the trick is to find an honest Muslim. very difficult indeed. We do not need these primitive traitors in our military... or in our country for that matter.
Or the Democrats could run him for President!
Oh, wait, the Democrats have only run draft dodgers, and have not yet stooped so low as to run a deserter.
I guess there's always 2008!
Let me get this straight: this guy lost nearly a pound of weight each day and yet he is considered to be in "excellent physical condition"?
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