"German" "Hostage" Update

Toldja So alert: Freed German hostage says Iraq captors not criminals.

DUBAI (AFP) - A former German hostage who spent 24 days in the hands of unknown captors in Iraq said her kidnappers were not criminals and had demanded humanitarian aid for Sunni Arab regions.

Funny, since they got Muhammad Ali Hamadi, the Hizballah terrorist serving a life sentence for torturing, murdering, and throwing the body of an American off a plane in Beirut.

Speaking to the enemy's premier propaganda organ Doha-based satellite channel Al-Jazeera, Susanne Osthoff said her captors told her not to be afraid as her kidnapping was "politically motivated."

"Do not be afraid. We do not harm women or children and you are a Muslim," she quoted them as saying. "I was so happy to know that I had not fallen into the hands of criminals," she said.

It's professional courtesy, Frau Osthoff -- y'know, the same reason sharks don't eat lawyers.

Osthoff, a Muslim convert and fluent Arabic speaker, said her captors demanded German humanitarian aid for Iraq's Sunni Arabs and stated clearly that they did not want a ransom. "They said we don't want money... Maybe we want from Germany ... hospitals and schools in the Sunni triangle, and they would like to get money in the form of humanitarian aid," she said.

She described her captors as "poor people" and that she "cannot blame them for kidnapping her, as they cannot enter the Green Zone to kidnap Americans." She said she lived with her captors in a clean place and that they treated her "well."

"And there were teddy bears and butterflies and we sang and danced under a gum-drop rainbow."

But she repeated more than once that she "was sold," without making clear what she meant. . . . She was the first German national to be kidnapped in Iraq, and many questions remain unanswered about her ordeal.

Like, "how much money was in Hamadi's briefcase?"