Christian Ex-Hostage Mulls Testifying Against Captors

By Gretta Curtis, Christian Today Reporter Thursday, November 09, 2006

Former British hostage Norman Kember is unsure as to whether he will testify against his suspected captors who have now been arrested.

The Christian peace activist has been asked by police to give evidence against the people accused of holding him and three others captive in Iraq for 118 days before his release in March this year.

One of the hostages, American Tom Fox, was killed.

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Kember told Channel 4 News he was "very unhappy for a number of reasons.”

“I would like to do an Amish act, that is I feel that forgiveness is the most positive thing we can do in this situation,” he said. “I have yet to be convinced that [testifying] would be a sensible thing to do.”.

Kember said that he was aware that one of his fellow captives, Canadian Jim Loney, had also been contacted by Canadian police and is "in the same moral dilemma” that he is in.

However, peace campaigner Bruce Kent, vice president of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) which campaigned for Kember's release, argued, "I do think he should testify, but whether that is in person or by videotape or something, I don't know.

"I think he should identify them if he can do that and he should say in a simple story what happened."

Kent concluded, "He does not have to get judgmental; that is for other people, but he should say what happened to him because what happened to him was criminal."

More than 200 foreigners and thousands of Iraqis have been kidnapped in Iraq since the 2003 US-led invasion. At least 55 foreign hostages are known to have been killed.