POLAND: Mystery surrounds the freeing of a Polish woman by her Iraqi kidnappers after she unexpectedly reappeared in Warsaw after a month in captivity.
Ms Teresa Borcz Khalifa (54), who had lived in Baghdad for many years with her Iraqi husband, said she could not explain how or why she was released, just days after the suspected murder of Ms Margaret Hassan.
"I was held in a small, very clean room, newly painted. I was well fed, and I was given plenty of water and toiletries," Ms Borcz Khalifa said, looking slightly dazed as reporters applauded her arrival at a hastily convened news conference on Saturday, the day after she secretly returned to Poland.
She was abducted at her home in Baghdad by a group calling itself the Abu Bakr al-Seddiq Salafist Brigades, which demanded that Poland withdraw its 2,500 troops from Iraq, where it also commands an 8,000-strong multinational division. There is overwhelming public opposition in Poland to its involvement.
"It was organised in such a way that there was no possibility," she said when asked if she had tried to escape. "But I did hope it would all finish well. My hope was in the decent treatment I received, which they said was motivated by their religious beliefs." She said she had no idea how she came to be released.
"I don't even know how it really happened," she said. "I had a black scarf over my eyes and was dressed in the clothes of a Muslim woman."
Prime Minister Mr Marek Belka said he could not discuss details of Ms Borcz Khalifa's release, "first, because of security concerns for our people . . . and also because our partners expressed a firm wish not to reveal any details of the release operation".
He would not discount that a ransom had been paid, saying only that it had involved "several government agencies and services in co-operation with institutions from other countries".
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