A French engineer taken hostage in Iraq last month has been freed by his captors, who appear to have panicked at a checkpoint and bundled him out of their car, Iraqi Interior Ministry and police sources said today.
A French engineer taken hostage in Iraq last month has been freed by his captors, who appear to have panicked at a checkpoint and bundled him out of their car, Iraqi Interior Ministry and police sources said today.
France confirmed the release of Bernard Planche, who was seized in early December in Baghdad where he had been working for a non-governmental organisation at a water treatment plant.
The Iraqi sources said it appeared Mr Planche's captors were trying to move him from one area to another yesterday when they encountered a joint US and Iraqi army checkpoint near Abu Ghraib prison, west of the capital. They pushed the Frenchman out of their car and escaped.
"He is now safe and in the hands of the US military," the Interior Ministry source said.
French President Jacques Chirac said he was delighted. "The president thanks coalition forces who enabled this release to happen. He has expressed his gratitude to all those involved," his office said in a statement.
A little-known militant group called the "Surveillance for the Sake of Iraq Brigade" claimed responsibility last month for Mr Planche's abduction and issued a video purporting to show him being held captive.
They threatened to kill him unless France ended what they described as its "illegitimate presence" in Iraq. France has no troops in Iraq and is not taking part in any form of police training. There are some 90 French nationals in Iraq, about half of them working at the French embassy.
There have been at least 15 kidnappings of foreigners in Iraq in the past three months after a three-month lull in the middle of last year when there were no reported abductions.
At least four foreign hostages - two Canadians, a Briton and an American who were in the country on a peacemaking mission - are still being held.
In January last year, gunmen seized a French journalist, Florence Aubenas, and held her and her Iraqi driver captive for five months before releasing her.
In late 2004, France, which opposed the US-led Iraq war, secured the release of two French journalists who had been kidnapped and held for four months.