Two more Japanese hostages released in Iraq

10.10am

BAGHDAD - Two Japanese hostages were released in the Iraqi capital overnight (NZ time), saying they had been moved from house to house during their three days in captivity but had been treated fairly well.

Jumpei Yasuda and Nobutaka Watanabe were unshaven and looked tired but in good health as they were handed over to Japanese diplomats at Baghdad's Um al-Qura mosque.

Yasuda, 30, a freelance journalist, and Watanabe, 36, a former member of the Japanese military with ties to a civic group, said they had been treated with respect after being taken hostage on Wednesday west of Baghdad.

"We were treated kindly," Yasuda said. "We had a good meal every day. I don't know the place where we were. We were caught around Abu Ghraib and after that we were blindfolded and changed house every day.

"We were released this morning. We are very glad and want to say thank you to everyone."

A Reuters cameraman was there when the men were handed over to the Muslim Clerics Association, a Sunni group which has facilitated the release of several groups of foreign hostages in Iraq, including three other Japanese released on Thursday.

"I received information yesterday that two Japanese hostages would be released," the association's spokesman Abdel Salam al-Kubaisi told Reuters.

"I delayed announcing it until they arrived at the mosque and we contacted the Japanese embassy to pick them up."

A Japanese Foreign Ministry official in Tokyo confirmed the two were in the custody of Japanese diplomats in Baghdad.

Yasuda's father said he was overjoyed about his son's release.

"I don't know what to say. I have never been happier than this," 64-year-old Hideaki Yasuda told Kyodo news agency.

DANGEROUS REGION

The area west of Baghdad, stretching from Abu Ghraib to Falluja and beyond, is notorious for attacks on US convoys and foreigners by Sunni militants fighting the occupation.

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who was put under considerable pressure by the hostage crisis, said he wanted Japanese civilians to stop going to Iraq.

"Even the Self-Defence Forces (Japanese military) do not go to Baghdad. I want civilians to refrain from daring to visit dangerous places," he said while campaigning for a by-election in Hiroshima.

Watanabe said he wanted to tell people about conditions in Falluja, where US forces have launched an operation to root out insurgents. Hospitals say hundreds of civilians have been killed in the fighting.

"Now many people in Falluja are dying because the Americans attacked Falluja," he said in broken English. "Many Iraqi people are dying in this country. It's a problem."

Relatives of three other Japanese hostages freed on April 15 arrived in Dubai to meet the three and escort them home.

Those three -- Noriaki Imai, 18, freelance journalist Soichiro Koriyama, 32, and aid worker Nahoko Takato, 34 -- had been shown on video blindfolded and with guns to their heads shortly after their capture on April 7.

More than 40 foreigners have been taken hostage in Iraq. Most have been released. Both Sunni and Shi'ite leaders have appealed for kidnappers not to harm foreign civilians.

On Friday, a Canadian was delivered to a Shi'ite religious office in Najaf, and three Czechs were freed in Baghdad.

But several foreigners are still missing, including two US soldiers, a US contractor, a Palestinian, a Dane, a Jordanian-born businessman and three Italians.

A fourth Italian was killed by his captors who threatened to kill the other three if Italy did not withdraw from Iraq.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq