An American man who said he had been kidnapped nine months ago by Iraqi militants was handed over to US officials in Baghdad last night in a bizarre and murky series of events that caught diplomats here by surprise.
Speaking at a news conference in Baghdad, the camouflage-clad American, identified as Randy Michael Hultz, said he was a former soldier who had returned to Iraq as a civilian contractor before being kidnapped in June by a Shia paramilitary group loyal to anti-American Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
He said he had been shuffled from house to house around Baghdad before his release.
"It was explained to me that this is a gift to me, my family and the American people who opposed the war," Mr Hultz said in a stilted, sometimes halting deadpan during the news conference.
"Without a doubt I and my family thank Saeed Muqtada al-Sadr."
At the news conference, Sadrist politicians called the release a demonstration of the "humanitarian and moral standards of the Iraqi Islamic resistance" meant to cultivate good will after the US military's withdrawal from Iraq.
They said there had been no negotiations with the Americans – Mr Hultz was released to UN officials, who then turned him over to the Americans.
Officials at the US Embassy were scrambling last night to understand what had happened.
They said they had no records of any American citizen still considered missing in Iraq, and some learned of his resurfacing from news reports.
The State Department confirmed that the UN had transferred a US citizen to the embassy in Baghdad, but cited privacy laws that prevented them from releasing his name, or any details about him, without his consent.
Americans face a near constant risk of kidnapping in Iraq, both inside and outside the protected International Zone where diplomats work and live.
Although US officials would not confirm details of Mr Hultz's background, information found online suggests he is a former army sergeant who served in Iraq in 2004 and was lured back by the promise of wealth in a country that has attracted its share of adventurous investors.
Mr Hultz's ex-wife, Kendra Hultz, said in a telephone interview that she knew Mr Hultz had been in Iraq, but that she and their daughter and son had little contact with him and did not know what he had been doing in Baghdad.
"He just disappeared," she said. In May 2008, an NPR report about Western entrepreneurs in Iraq featured Mr Hultz, who said he had returned to Baghdad to help oversee investments for a venture called the Iraq Fund.
He described real estate deals, the feeling of ferrying bags of cash in the streets and a few of the challenges facing Iraq's economy.
New York Times