Australia’s Foreign Minister has appealed on Al Jazeera television for the release of an Australian man held hostage by Iraqi militants.
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer made the plea on the Arabic television channel as an Australian emergency response team landed in Baghdad in a bid to free Douglas Wood.
63-year-old Mr Wood is an engineer who lives in California and is married to an American. Minister Downer said Mr Wood has a serious heart problem and wants to be reunited with his wife and child.
‘Mr Wood is not a well man. He has had significant heart problems and he has a wife and he had three brothers and a child... he wants to be able to see his family again,’ Downer said.
A two-minute video delivered to news agencies in Baghdad on Sunday showed Wood held at gunpoint. Downer said the video was credible and that Wood may have been kidnapped from his Baghdad apartment up to two days before it was released by his captors.
