Kidnapped by Iraqis... then by Americans

My friend Phil Sands, a British journalist, was kidnapped on Boxing Day but freed by US soldiers who stumbled across him accidently during a house raid on New Years Eve (as an independent journalist, no one had realised he was missing - see his accounts in the Scotsman and San Francisco Chronicle).

It is good news that Phil is free, however his translator Salam, who is one of my closest Iraqi friends and was my translator back in 2003, was immediately detained by the Americans and is still been held by them. They did not even allow him to call his family who only learnt what had happened when we managed to contact them via a mutual friend. Translators and drivers are routinely suspected of being involved in kidnappings - it took weeks to release our CPT translators and drivers who were detained after the kidnapping in November - which is a great disservice to these Iraqis who put themselves at great risk to protect us and enable us to work. Phil is convinced that Salam had nothing whatsoever to do with his kidnapping, and I support him 100%.