NEW YORK, 21 July 2004 — In his first public briefing since his disappearance in Iraq a month ago, Marine Muslim Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun told reporters on Monday he was captured and did not desert the military.

Cpl. Hassoun remarks were brief: “In the name of God. I am glad to be home. And I thank you all for your prayers and support.

“I did not desert my post. I was captured and held against my will by anti-coalition forces for 19 days,” the corporal said.

Hassoun said that since his release he had been “fully participating in the repatriation process,” a routine procedure for any Marine who has been captured or detained.

He then thanked those who had looked for him while he was missing, “and thanks to God for everything.”

Cpl. Hassoun also had a message for his fellow Marines: “I would like to tell all the Marines as well as all those others serving in Iraq to keep their heads up and spirits high. Once a Marine ... always a Marine. Semper Fi,” said Hassoun, using the Marine Corps motto, Latin for “always faithful.’’

Lt. Col. David Lapan, spokesman for Hassoun’s unit, the Second Marine Expeditionary Forc, said the investigation would continue at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, where the unit is based and where he will be sent sometime this week.

Col. Lapan said Cpl. Hassoun had requested the new conference in order to put an end to rumors he had deserted.

“He came out today is because he asked to do so,” said Lapan. “He was concerned with some of the information that’s been out there, and he wanted the opportunity to provide, to the extend he could, what happened.”

Lapan said Hassoun’s words “were his own. Not one word was changed,” he said.

The corporal did not answer any questions during his brief appearance on Monday, saying he was still in the “repatriation process” in which he is debriefed and given time to decompress and avoid the media spotlight.

Lapan said the Marine Corps was not yet in a position to confirm or deny Hassoun’s kidnapping claim. “Any conclusions about what happened between the time that he disappeared and when he was returned to our control remains to be the focus of the repatriation process itself,” said Lapan.

The Marine Corps confirmed the Naval Criminal Investigative Service would look into whether Hassoun was abducted, and whether his abduction was a hoax or if Hassoun deserted his unit.

Hassoun, 24, of West Jordan, Utah, disappeared from his base near Fallujah and later showed up at the US Embassy in Beirut. It is unclear how he traveled from Iraq to Lebanon, where he was born and still has family.

On June 27, Arab television showed a videotape of a blindfolded Hassoun with a sword over his head. At one point during his disappearance, a group claiming to represent his captors said he had been beheaded after he was lured from his base by a love affair.