Corona Man Held in Iraq

A Corona woman is pleading for the safe return of her ex-husband, who was abducted in Baghdad last month after a bloody shootout.

Susan Hallums, 52, and her two daughters want the captors to free Roy Hallums, who has spent most of the last 11 years working in the Middle East for a Saudi company.

“He is a kind and wonderful father. We want him returned safely,” Susan Hallums said Saturday.

Roy Hallums, 56, and five others were kidnapped in the upscale neighborhood of Mansour on Nov. 1 after gunmen raided a company office. One Iraqi guard and one assailant were killed in the shootout.

The captives work for the Saudi Arabian Trading and Construction Co., a Riyadh-based group that supplies food to the military, Susan Hallums said.

“He loved doing what he did,” she said. “He wasn’t scared.”

Susan Hallums said she had been told by federal officials that Roy Hallums is alive. She said her ex-husband’s employer had been trying to negotiate a ransom payment, something the U.S. State Department discourages.

“In hostage situations, we do everything we can to secure the release of an American. But we have a long-standing U.S. policy not to negotiate with terrorists,” said Kurtis Cooper, a State Department spokesman, who declined to discuss specifics about the kidnapping.

Roy Hallums’ employer could not be reached for comment Saturday.

Susan Hallums said she understood the necessity of the State Department’s policy, but supports any means to ensure the release of her ex-husband.

“One of my daughters has been sick to her stomach every day,” she said. “She was hysterical when she found out he was kidnapped.”

Susan Hallums said the lack of new information about her ex-husband’s whereabouts has made the ordeal excruciating. One of those taken hostage with Hallums was Robert Tarongoy, a Filipino accountant whose disappearance has stricken his home country. Susan Hallums said she regularly reads Filipino newspapers online, which have been engrossed with Tarongoy’s abduction, in hopes of learning about her ex-husband.

Susan and Roy Hallums grew up in Memphis and were married in 1971. They divorced last year mainly because Hallums’ work required him to be abroad so much. He was only home in Corona about six weeks a year. Despite the divorce, the two corresponded almost daily by e-mail, she said.

The Hallumses have two daughters, Carrie, who turns 29 today, and Amanda, 25.