Romanian Journalist Details Iraq Captivity

A Romanian journalist held hostage in Iraq for nearly two months recalled how he and his fellow hostages were confined in a hot cellar, blindfolded and ordered not to speak.

Ovidiu Ohanesian, home after the hostages’ release May 22, also said in an interview Sunday that they received new clothes as a parting gift from their captors.

Ohanesian, of the daily newspaper Romania Libera, and reporter Marie Jeanne Ion and cameraman Sorin Miscoci of Prima TV were taken captive March 28 in Baghdad along with their Iraqi American guide, Mohammed Monaf.

A negotiating team led by Romanian President Traian Basescu won the journalists’ freedom. A previously unknown group calling itself Maadh bin Jabal claimed responsibility for the kidnapping in a videotape aired on Al Jazeera television.

The abductees were blindfolded and ordered not to speak, Ohanesian said. They were punished if they broke the rules -- handcuffed or denied meals.

“We spent 51 days underground, crowded in a small cellar [with] a weak light bulb, and blindfolded. There was no air, I was sweating abundantly, worse than a sauna,” he said.

Romanian prosecutors have accused Monaf of helping to orchestrate the kidnapping along with a Syrian-born businessman. Monaf’s wife and the businessman have denied the charge. Monaf is being held in Iraq by U.S. authorities.

Ohanesian said he found it hard to believe Monaf was involved in the kidnapping.

“I think he was a collateral victim,” he said. “Monaf was held with us the entire time.”