a ransom of $170,000 for his release and another abducted church leader.
The priest, Samy Abdulahad Al-Raiys, who was also identified as Sami Dank by Assyrian news sources, was released Sunday, cember 10, the Chaldean Patriarchate and other church officials said.
Al Raiys had reportedly been abducted near his home at the Church of St. George in the morning of December 4. Before his kidnapping, the priest had been scheduled to inaugurate the new academic year at the Simon Peter Seminary, which had been closed since the summer
because of a lack of security, according to several church sources.
The Baghdad-based seminary was to have reopened December 6 for a trial week of classes, but the opening was apparently postponed when the rector was kidnapped. The institute and its college of theology had reportedly been moved from its original location in the southern
Baghdad suburb of Dora after the neighborhood was rocked by violence. Iraqi Christians say violence and threats against Christians have intensified in the seminary’s new location in Jadida, a neighborhood in southeastern Baghdad.
EMOTIONAL APPEAL
During Al Raiys’ six-day ordeal the Chaldean Patriarchate of Baghdad urged the abductors "not to harm him but to treat him well." In a statement the Patriarchate said that, "We trust Father Samy in the hands of the Lord and of Providence, asking Him to help save Iraq from these kidnapping which terrorize everyone, adults and children alike."
His eventual release came shortly after 34-year-old Doglas Yousef Al-Bazy was freed November 28, nine days after he was as kidnapped. Church officials have admitted they paid the $170,000 for the release of both priests, raising concerns that insurgents ould repeat similar kidnappings of Iraqi Christians and their leaders.
In a statement obtained by BosNewsLife earlier this week, the Assyrian Church said Iraqi security forces were already cooperating with insurgents involved in these kidnappings as they were able to pass checkpoints without difficulties.
STUDY GROUP
The developments come at a time when Iraqi President Jalal Talabani has expressed concerns over recommendations in the US Iraq Study Group’s report, including suggestions that most American combat troops should be withdrawn by early 2008. Violence again rocked Baghdad Wednesday, December 13, when a car bomb blast near a Shi’ite mosque in eastern Baghdad killed 10 people and wounded 25 others, Iraqi officials said.
The blast followed Tuesday’s suicide car bomb blast targeting Shi’ite day laborers in Baghdad that killed 70 and wounded 230, news reports said. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki reportedly blamed the attack on sympathizers of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and Sunni extremists.
Also Wednesday, December 13, in the town of Riyadh – some 50 kilometers south of Kirkuk – suicide attackers drove two vehicles into an Iraqi army base and then detonated explosives that killed at least seven soldiers and wounded 10 others, The Voice of America (VOA) reported. Amid the bloodshed an increasing number of Iraqi Christians have fled to neighboring Jordan and Syria. There are about 700,000 Christians still in Iraq, but many of them have been displaced. At least 700,000 others are believed to have fled before and during the Iraq war. (With reports from Iraq and BosNewsLife Research).
