The business of kidnapping in Iraq – two decades (ii) mystification of history
After twenty years, we want or not, the abduction of Romanian journalists in Iraq occupies a place of honor in our recent history. The civil society, held in suspense for two months, in 2005, demanded explanations, and the power was not going to flutter its dirty clothes in front of people.
The corrupt system that had barely settled in Cotroceni at the end of 2004 sought to slap the evidence that could solve the riddle of the kidnapping in Iraq. How did it happen ? With the help of justice. First, the system settled a convenient minister at the Ministry of Justice, then changed the prosecutors’ gasket from the management of the Public Ministry. The escape from the country of the main culprit, the Romanian-Sirian terrorist Omar Hayssam, relieved the mission of power, breaking the heads of the main secret services. The new spies appointed in important functions from the Cotroceni Palace, with small exceptions, were controllable nullities. Slowly but surely, the files of major offenses, doldora with state secrets, entered the hands of Minister Monica Macovei, Primajuncta SRI Florian Coldea, the « master » couple Laura Codruța Koveși – Codruț Olaru and in the attention of the new deputy chief prosecutor of the crime organized with a wife to SRI, Ciprian Nastasiu. The famous protocols by which the espionage intervened in the act of justice were now operating in the magistrates’ bed. More serious, our NATO partners and conflict areas in which the Romanian state had been involved and had interests in the Iraqi, USA and France operation, would also participate in this mystification of history.
About a serious inquiry in Iraq could not be spoken, given the level of institutional corruption and inter -denominational conflicts in the area. However, there was an attempt to investigate events, materialized in sterile discussions in the Council Hall of the General Prosecutor’s Office with members of the Commission of Inquiry of the Directorate of Major Crime near the Sharq El Khanat Court, in Iraq. Meetings and debates on the operation, the headquarters of Gary Dickson, the FBI resident in Bucharest and with a high dignitary in the field of national safety in France, were held in the operation. Roy Hallums and Florence Aubenois hostages had not yet been recovered. Our hope was hanging on the interest of Western democracies, where, we believed that justice is working.
Water separation
But to be everything « ok », we found out later, the new operative head of the SRI and the Timisoara magistrate who had the most important files of the country in 2005 were called in the US, noted by the secret American services and awarded for special merits. On this occasion, the winners also received a complex documentation about the famous smuggler Viktor Anatolievici Bout, which was in the abduction file (540/D/P/2005) along with the Hayssam network, all being investigated for money laundering in the interest of some criminal organizations. Who thought that, after the carnage of September 9-11, 2001, an event as serious and excessively publicized as the abduction of citizens of various nationalities, can be massaged globally, precisely by those who gave anti-terrorism lessons? Who believed that the United States of America will be pretending to extract and protect some terrorists (Munaf brothers, Mashhadani or Viktor Bout brothers), judged and convicted for the abduction of Romanian, French and American citizens and for international trafficking with weapons?
How did they do? Treating the cases of hostages in the « pit of lions » separately, as if they had no connection with each other, as if the Romanian hostages did not exist in the cellar, along with the American and the French.
Thus, propaganda films subsequently made by the US Army, taken in the UK press and passes on the cable channels with global stretch, have almost completely ignored the links between Vicitimime gathered 29 km south of Baghdad and organized crime and smuggling.
The frustrations of a mazilit prosecutor
After the journalists put the information available on the market « Water separation », it did not work. The DIICOT magistrates who coordinated the research in the terrorism and weapons smuggling files 540/D/P/2005 and 628/D/P/2005 were mazili. The files were closed in a hurry, but they gave a new round of disclosures. Thus, the most important investigator both in the case of abduction, but also in the case of international trafficking with armament, Ciprian Nastasiu, fallen in disgrace, would put on the wallpaper the criminal network of which Omar Hayssam, Mohammad Munaf and Viktor Bout. Remaining without functions, Nastasiu devolved the relations between the organized crime and the institutions of the Romanian state, first in a series of televised interviews, then in a book financed and published by an American (Victor Gaetan) entitled « Folding Romania ». Officially, the kidnapping business in Iraq already had an international dimension. Finally, the American authorities led him by the public enemy no. 1 Viktor Bout, in Thailand and wanted to mourn for cooperation. For us, the only scapegoat left Omar Hayssam and Mohammad Munaf, both missing under the eyes of the Romanian authorities.
How did they solve Munaf
The problem of American terrorist Mohammad Munaf was solved so quickly that I had the impression that he was not even a kid. Immediately after the release from the cellar with hostages near the town of Mahmudia in Iraq, the three Romanian hostages, accompanied by Munaf, were taken to the Romanian Embassy in Baghdad, that is on the Romanian territory, and took in custody of SIE and SRI. Suddenly and without any explanation, the next day, only three people remained. Munaf took him for hearings to the US Army and there remained for ten years. On his brother, Youssif Al-amin, who was a driver during the movement of Romanians through Iraq, the Americans had already jumped. The disappearance of the American terrorist in the embassy was treated by the then president, Traian Basescu, as a normality, as if Munaf, charged for acts of terrorism, would not have been a part of the abduction of the three Romanian journalists or for the mere fact that he was an American citizen. In Bucharest, Order 1855/C, from December 5, 2005, issued by the Ministry of Justice and signed by Monica Luisa Macovei, permanently prevented the bringing and judgment of a key witness in terrorism, armament trafficking and abduction files.
« Art.1. The request for extradition made by the Bucharest Court of Appeal, the Criminal Section I, requesting the extradition from the United States of the so -called Munaf Mohammad, born on November 29, 1962, in Iraq, the son of Munaf and Suat, is not transmitted to the American authorities. » Mohammad Munaf was restored and incarcerated, in secret, in Romania in 2015, then released with scandal, three years before the deadline, in July 2022.
Romanians are missing from the documentaries of American propaganda
Although the presence of the journalist Florence Aubenais was notorious about us in the Romanian pit with hostages, and the French secret services (DST) and American (FBI) went to Bucharest, to collaborate with the Romanians in the case of officer Roy Hallums (including with newly released journalists), no others have been released) Iraq.
The Frenchwoman Aubenais did not publicly recognize our presence in captivity, until he personally moved to Romania at a matrimonial event, where he met with Basescu. A decade later, the former president would publicly recognize the contribution of the Romanian authorities to the issuance of the French journalist.
In the US, the army has released numerous images with the release of officer Roy Hallums, with whom I suffered almost two months, but neither these documentary images or subsequent interviews given by Hallums, did not refer to Romanians. The Americans were silent. A thin attempt to present the operation in Iraq was done in the small documentary entitled Delta Force & The Royle Hallums in September 2005. Only in 2010, the US Army has given its agreement to present the documentary Kidnap and Rescue, declaring information, filming and images from the release of the Roy Hallmus spy. The first clear images in the pit with hostages (the pit of lions as it was named by the HWG officers) in which all, Romanians, Americans, Filipinos, Iraqi, were made by the special team Hostage Working Group (a Delta Force detachment, accompanied by the 160 Regiment Aepurted by Special Operations), which filmed the operations) to the American officer Hallums, avoiding a word about Romanians.
In fact, as can be seen in the images below, the first information given to advertising only refers to six hostages (1 American, 1 Nepalese, 3 Iraqis and a Philippine).
Roy didn’t talk too much about the terrorist Mohammad Munaf, although they were nose to nose, under the ground, for more than two months. Perhaps the lack of information, about the Romanian hostages, from the interview offered by Hallums in September 2005 (in the show « 60 minutes », conducted by the war correspondent Leslie Stahl) is understandable, the American being at that time still under the pressure of events. We must not forget that Hallums had been the man of secret services all his life, working at least four years at the Pentagon and being subjected to restrictions even after his passing. After all, the truth came from this, from the book Buried Alive (published at Thomas Nelson Inc. Publishing House in 2009) where a chapter dedicated us. 20 Romanians. He had probably received an opinion from the counter -information to provide more details about his 311 -day captivity epic.
Terrorists who have tormented Iraq’s hostage harassment for a decade through the US
In 2017, a scandal exploded in the US press after the families of alleged terrorists who had participated in the abduction and torture of the information officer Roy Hallums were identified on the US territory. The two Iraqi brothers Youusif Al-Mashhadani and Adil Hasan were arrested and accused of fraudulent immigration after, together with their families, they lived and worked, it is not known how, more than a decade on the US territory.
The two were brothers with the major terrorist Al-Mashhadani sought by the American authorities for the abduction of Roy Hallums. In the case of Youusif there were even samples (fingerprints) raised from the Gesatians in Iraq. Thus, although the Romanian journalists were side by side in the pit with Hallums, and the American investigators found on -site evidence (fingerprints of the two Iraqis), no reference to them appears in the DIICOT file. There was no connection between the Mashhadani brothers and the Munaf brothers, who had been detained for the abduction of some citizens. Needless to add that, once convicted of the abduction of the Romanians, the American terrorist Munaf was also part of the combination that tortured and tortured on the American officer. The brother of the Terrorist Munaf, Youssef Al Amin was also arrested in 2005, to participate in the abduction of Romanian journalists, but miraculously was released and lives quietly in Iraq, where he was active as an ophthalmologist.
Thus a beautiful mystification of contemporary history was made.
Business of the kidnapping in Iraq (i) two decades of great fulfillment and lies
