Hostage's family ignore torture claims

The family of Auckland-based Canadian student Harmeet Sooden - being held hostage by Iraqi insurgents - refuse to accept news agency reports that his co-captive Tom Fox was tortured before being killed.

Spokesman Mark Brewer, Mr Sooden's brother-in-law, yesterday told the Herald that Foreign Affairs officials had asked the family to wait for the findings of an official report into Mr Fox's death.

Advice to the family was it seemed "very unlikely" he was tortured. That report was due in the next couple of days, Mr Brewer said.

Mr Fox, 54, Mr Sooden, 32, and two other Christian Peacemaker Team members were kidnapped in November by a group calling itself the Swords of Truth.

Mr Fox's body was discovered in a west Baghdad rubbish dump on Thursday. The American's hands were reportedly bound, and he had a single gunshot wound to the head.

Iraqi police said he appeared to have been tortured, possibly beaten with electric cables.

But Mr Brewer said the family had "no further thoughts" on the matter, until there was "more concrete evidence surrounding the circumstances of the finding of the body".

He said the family was wary of news reports coming out of the region as there had been "a lot of rumours and speculation in the past few months, and very little of it has proved to be accurate".

Mr Sooden's religious group had been in Iraq to campaign against the "dehumanisation" of the US occupation.

The kidnappers - one of many armed groups that have seized more than 200 foreigners and thousands of Iraqis since the US-led invasion - had threatened to kill the men unless US forces and the Iraqi authorities freed all prisoners in their custody.

A US embassy spokeswoman said Mr Fox's body was on its way back to the United States.

Fears about his fate were raised last week when Arabic television station Al Jazeera aired a video, dated February 28, showing only fellow kidnapped activists Briton Norman Kember and Canadians James Loney and Mr Sooden.

There was no word on Saturday on the fate of the three, who looked well in the video and did not appear distressed.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokesman Brad Tattersfield said the department would not make any comment on Mr Fox's death, at least until the results of an autopsy were released.


Harmeet Singh Sooden

* Aged 32
* Christian Peacemaker Team member
* Electrical engineer studying in Auckland
* Abducted in Baghdad on November 26