AFP appeal over employee kidnapped in Baghdad

0 Comments | AFP, April, 2006

PARIS (AFP) — Agence France-Presse chairman Pierre Louette appealed to Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari to help secure the release of an AFP employee kidnapped in Baghdad.

AFP accountant Salah Jali al-Gharrawi, 48, was snatched on April 4 after he left the company's Baghdad offices.

Despite intensive efforts, AFP has received no claim of responsibility or demands and has no information on Gharrawi's condition nor the identity of his abductors.

Voicing the agency's "increasing concerns", Louette appealed to Jaafari to intervene to help secure his release.

It was AFP's second appeal to the Iraqi authorities, following a first letter sent the day after Gharrawi's abduction.

Several AFP unions voiced their "sadness" and "anger" at the...