RIYADH, 13 July 2004 — The Saudi sponsor of an Egyptian truck driver kidnapped in Iraq said yesterday it had offered kidnappers $15,000 for his release and the captors were considering the proposal.
The unidentified kidnappers have demanded a $1 million ransom for the release of Mohammad Al-Gharbawi, who was seized 10 days ago while transporting Saudi fuel to Iraq.
“This driver is a Muslim. Everything must be made to help get him back safely to his family,” said Faisal Al-Nuheit, owner of the firm where Gharbawi has worked for eight years. He said the offer was made on Sunday by Hizam Al-Qahtani, a Saudi businessman who had been negotiating Gharbawi’s release with the kidnappers on behalf of Nuheit.
The Egyptian Embassy in Riyadh said they had no information on Gharbawi’s condition. Qatar-based Al-Jazeera television last week reported that Gharbawi, in his 50s, was abducted while delivering petrol products to US forces in Iraq by a group which it said represented the “legitimate Iraqi resistance”.
Nuheit, who denies that the fuel supplies he transports under a contract with a Saudi firm were going to US forces, has said that an unidentified caller had telephoned him several times demanding money.
Meanwhile, fifty-four Saudi-based drivers of oil tanker trucks stranded in Iraq are expected to head back to the Kingdom today under an Iraqi-Philippine escort, the manager of the company hiring the drivers said yesterday.
The arrangement was worked out after the Philippine Embassy in Baghdad sought to escort the 10 Filipinos among the group out of Iraq while leaving behind their trucks and other drivers, who are of various nationalities, AFP quoted Al-Qahtani as saying.
Qahtani, general manager of Al-Jari Transport Company licensed to ferry Saudi oil shipments to Iraq, said the embassy wanted to bring the 10 Filipinos back aboard four police vehicles belonging to the 51-strong force from the Philippines serving in Iraq.
But his company insisted that all drivers, along with their trucks, should come back together, and it had been agreed that this would happen today under joint Iraqi-Philippine protection up to the border.
The agreement was coordinated with Iraqi authorities and the Philippine Embassy here. A Filipino community leader had told AFP here on Sunday that concern was growing among the community about the conditions of the low-paid Filipino drivers, who have been stranded in Iraq for several days, at a time when one of their colleagues faces a threat of execution by kidnappers demanding that the Philippines pull out its small contingent from the country.
The Saudi oil shipments stopped on June 30 due to deteriorating security, only 13 days after they began. Qahtani said it would be decided if the shipments would resume today following an agreement with the Iraqi oil ministry under which it has hired a security firm to provide protection for the trucks.
