Abductee in Iraq Pleads for Help in Videotape
A French journalist abducted nearly two months ago pleaded for help in a video that surfaced Tuesday, saying she was in failing health.
The video of Florence Aubenas, 43, a veteran war correspondent for the leftist daily newspaper Liberation, was dropped off at the offices of an international news agency in Baghdad, and it was not possible to verify when it was made.
Aubenas and her Iraqi translator, Hussein Hanoun Saadi, were last seen leaving her Baghdad hotel Jan. 5.
In the video, Aubenas appears pale, her hair uncombed. She pleads for French lawmaker Didier Julia to help win her release.
“Please help me, my health is very bad,” she says in English. “Please, it’s urgent now. I ask especially Mr. Didier Julia, the French deputy, to help me.”
Julia caused an uproar last year when he tried to help mediate the release of two kidnapped French journalists.
That effort failed, and the French government denied that it had approved his intervention.
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