Freed journalist wants to stay in Iraq

BAGHDAD - Irish journalist Rory Carroll, freed on Thursday after 36 hours in the hands of Baghdad kidnappers, said he wanted to go on reporting on Iraq.

"The next move is unclear but I would like to report on Iraq in the future," the 33-year-old correspondent for London's Guardian said shortly after his release.

He said he did not know who was responsible for snatching him on Wednesday. Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi was present when he was released after a day-and-a-half in darkness.

"I don't know who took me," Carroll said. "I was released about an hour ago. I'm fine. I was treated reasonably well," he added.

"I spent the last 36 hours in the dark. I was released into the hands of Dr Chalabi."

The Guardian had said Carroll, who has been in Baghdad since January, was seized as he left the home of a Shi'ite Muslim family who had suffered under Saddam Hussein and were watching the first day of his trial on television.

Chalabi, a wealthy secular Shi'ite who returned from exile after the fall of Saddam and then fell out with his former sponsors in Washington, has built up powerful links with leading Shi'ite clerics.

- REUTERS