Family demand US answers over beheaded son

1.00pm

WEST CHESTER, PENNSYLVANIA - The parents of Nick Berg, the American civilian beheaded in Iraq, said on Tuesday their son might be alive if he had not been held for nearly two weeks by Iraqi police and they were angry at the lack of information from the US government about his detention.

Their congressman, Republican Rep Jim Gerlach, said after visiting Berg's parents that they had been frustrated by lack of information from the US government when Berg was detained without charge by Iraqi police from around March 24 until his release on April 6.

"Had he not been detained for so long it's quite possible he would have made it back to the US," Gerlach said, adding that Berg had missed a plane flight because he was incarcerated .

"They did not feel they were getting the full information they wanted to help them understand what was happening," Gerlach, whose constituency includes the Bergs' Philadelphia suburban hometown of West Chester, Pennsylvania, said at a news briefing.

He said he would be seeking further information from the US government as to why they had not provided information to the family.

On Tuesday, a poor quality videotape posted on an Islamic militant website showed Al Qaeda's leader in Iraq beheading a man who said he was Nick Berg. The videotape carried statements vowing more killings in revenge for the abuse of Iraqi prisoners in a Baghdad prison by US soldiers.

Berg was in Baghdad from late December to February 1 and returned to Iraq in March. He did not find work and planned to return home at the end of March, according to his parents, Michael and Suzanne Berg.

Berg's daily communications to his parents stopped on March 24 and he later told them he was jailed by Iraqi officials at a checkpoint in Mosul. On April 5, the Bergs filed a lawsuit that said their son was being held illegally by the US military in Iraq. The next day, he was released.

The family said they were told by the US State Department on Monday that Berg's body had been found near a highway overpass in Baghdad.

Berg, owner of a communications tower business called Prometheus Methods Tower Service Inc, had been missing in Iraq for several weeks. He was a contractor who climbed communications towers to inspect them.

His parents last heard from him when he telephoned on April 9 and told them he was trying to find a safe way home.

The family said in a statement after the website posting that they were devastated by the murder. Gerlach said Berg's parents did not know about the videotape until Tuesday.

He declined to comment on any similarities with the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl by Islamic militants in Pakistan. Both Pearl and Berg were Jewish.

"The Berg family is devastated by this loss," said the statement, read on the lawn of the family's West Chester home 25km west of Philadelphia, by a neighbour and friend, Bruce Hauser.

"They want to extend their sympathy to other families who have also suffered. They are asking the army to expedite the release of Nick's body so they can make arrangements and put this behind them."

Berg's body is in Kuwait. It will be flown to Germany and then to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, Gerlach said.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq