Roy Hollums, the American civilian kidnapped in Iraq over 10 months ago and recently freed, sounds like an incredible guy. He refused to give the terrorists the phone number to his family while being tortured because he knew they would ask for ransom:
An American contract worker who was kidnapped in Iraq and held more than 10 months says in an interview that his captors kept him blindfolded and bound throughout the ordeal.
Roy Hallums, 57, described his experience to “60 Minutes” reporter Lesley Stahl in a segment that will air Sunday on CBS.
Hallums also said the motive behind his kidnapping was ransom but he refused to give his captors contact information for his family to spare them from having to negotiate.
Hallums was rescued Sept. 7 by coalition troops from a 4-foot-high crawl space under a farmhouse. He returned to his hometown of Memphis two days later to a joyous family reunion.
“When I saw him come down off the plane, it was the happiest moment of my life,” his ex-wife, Susan Hallums, told The Associated Press earlier this month.
Hallums, who worked for a contractor supplying food to the Iraqi Army, was captured Nov. 1 during an armed assault on the Baghdad compound where he lived. According to a release from CBS, he said that his captors used beatings to force him to criticize President Bush in a videotape.
On the video that was monitored in Iraq in January, Hallums was seen with a rifle pointed at his head.
“I am please asking for help because my life is in danger because it’s been proved I worked for American forces,” he said on the video. “I’m not asking for any help from President Bush because I know of his selfishness and unconcern for those who’ve been pushed into this hellhole.”
Hallums told “60 Minutes” that he believed the captors were related, ran “a family business” and were trying to get ransom money.
The kidnappers tried to force Hallums to give them a phone number for his family so they could ask for money, but Hallums did not reveal that information.
“I knew if I gave them the number, they would call them and ask for money,” Hallums said. “I didn’t want (my family) to deal with a call like that.”
Also recall that he was forced to badmouth Bush, which his family has publicly stated did not sound like him. So we can probably surmise that the terrorists hold the same view of Bush as the MSM.
Check out the video of his release at BareKnucklePolitics.
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