Isn't Business Class a Bit Much for a Simple Cleric?
Why is it that every time I hear about someone traveling to exotic locations in ridiculously lavish style, it’s always someone lecturing me on how evil and imperialistic I am? John Kerry, the UN, radical Islamic Sheikhs…
Tim Blair – RESCUED, NOT RELEASED
Meanwhile, the Sheikh’s claims are looking shaky:
Islamic leaders have accused Muslim cleric Taj al-Din al-Hilaly’s spokesman of inflating the mufti’s role in securing the freedom of hostage Douglas Wood.
The Australian Federation of Islamic Councils has spent thousands of dollars funding Sheik Hilaly’s trip to Iraq, where he worked closely with local religious and community leaders to try to negotiate the Australian engineer’s release.
AFIC leaders are angry at Sheik Hilaly’s Sydney-based spokesman Keysar Trad claims that the sheik had advanced knowledge of Mr Wood’s “release” and that he had been dropped off by agreement at a safe house rather than rescued in a random military raid …
Other leaders from AFIC, an umbrella body for Muslim community groups, were seething over Mr Trad’s comments. AFIC, which has kept a low profile since the kidnapping, paid for the sheik to fly business-class to Iraq and will pick up his phone and hotel tab, and that of a Sydney-based Iraqi who travelled with him.
And The Age reports that Australia planned an armed bid to liberate Wood, whose circumstances in captivity were terrifying:
Following Mr Wood’s rescue in a raid by Iraqi and American troops in Baghdad on Wednesday, The Age has been told that Mr Wood was held for most of the time in dank and desperate conditions with a larger group of hostages. They were mostly Iraqis, but there may have been some other foreign workers.
Although a full debriefing will await Mr Wood’s recovery and medical tests, it is believed he was aware of at least two of his fellow hostages being executed.
How unnecessary of them. Don’t they know all they have to do is turn off the air conditioner? I assume they had the air conditioner on.
