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Fears over Guardian journalist
Ewen MacAskill
Thursday October 20, 2005
The Guardian
The father of Rory Carroll, the Guardian journalist kidnapped yesterday in Baghdad, last night expressed hope that the abduction would not turn into a prolonged affair. Joe Carroll, 70, a retired journalist, said from his home in Dublin: "We hope and pray he will be released."
Rory was taken captive in a Shia-dominated district of Baghdad in the morning while conducting an interview at the home of a victim of Saddam Hussein.
His father said that while driving this morning he heard Rory speaking on RTE, the main Irish broadcaster, from the home where he was conducting the interview. Rory had been watching the opening of Saddam's trial with the people in the house and had been planning to write about the reaction of the victim for today's Guardian. When Rory left the house he was abducted.
Mr Carroll, who was a Guardian correspondent in Paris before joining the Irish Times, said his son constantly tried to play down the danger of being in Iraq. "He knew we were worried but he used to reassure us and say that it was not as dangerous as people outside think.
"He said if you observed basic rules and security, you would be OK. We knew he was playing it down for our sake and there was obvious danger."
Mr Carroll said: "My wife and myself are hoping it will not be a prolonged affair."
Rory, 33, who is Dublin-born and a graduate of Trinity College, has been in Baghdad since January. He is the Guardian's Africa correspondent, seconded for a year to Baghdad.
Before joining the Guardian, he was a staff reporter on the Irish News in Belfast and won the Northern Ireland Young Journalist of the Year award. He wrote on an eclectic range of issues, from injured policemen's battle for compensation to violence on a football pitch involving a team of born-again Christians.
Former Irish News editor Tom Collins, who employed Rory, said: "He came to us as a junior reporter, but was fully formed from the very beginning.
"His father was a reporter and if there was a case for journalism being genetic, Rory was it."
He said he was "quiet and unassuming" and destined to succeed on the international stage. "Rory has a lot of friends here, though he was only here for a short time, he made a big impact."
He joined the Guardian as a home news reporter in London before becoming the paper's correspondent in Rome in 1999 and Africa correspondent, based in Johannesburg, in 2002. He planned to spend a year in Iraq, intending to return to Johannesburg next year. His writing has been critical of the US-led coalition in Iraq. The Guardian was a leading opponent of the war in Iraq.
Journalists based in Baghdad have to be extremely careful about travelling round the city and make elaborate security arrangements.
He had asked the Baghdad office of Moqtada al-Sadr, a Shia cleric whose support has grown since the fall of Saddam in 2003, to suggest a victim of the former regime he could interview. The office fixed up the interview.
Before leaving for the interview, he spoke to a Romanian news channel, Realitatea TV, about the Saddam trial. He then left for the interview accompanied by a translator and two drivers. He spent three hours at the victim's home. Several visitors arrived while was there.
In his interview with RTE, he said: "I'm currently sitting in a house in Baghdad which has turned on its generator now for the family here to watch Saddam."
He added: "I'm sitting here with a Shia family whose son was abducted and executed by Saddam's forces some years ago. It's still a very emotional feeling for them."
On leaving the house, he was stopped near the home by gunmen and he and the driver were bundled into a car.
The Guardian quickly issued a statement confirming he was missing. It said: "The Guardian is urgently seeking information about Mr Carroll's whereabouts and condition."
The Irish government called yesterday for his speedy release. A spokesman for Dermot Ahern, the Irish foreign affairs minister, said the minister had spoken to Irish embassy officials in Tehran and Cairo.
The Irish government, which has no diplomatic presence in Iraq, has also been in touch with the British government which has an embassy in Baghdad.
The spokesman said: "Mr Ahern is being briefed on a minute-by-minute basis and closely monitoring the unfolding situation."
Michael D Higgins, an Irish parliamentarian and Labour spokesman on international affairs, said: "It should be made immediately clear that Mr Carroll is a professional carrying out his task of reporting objectively on the Middle East, something he has done with fairness and distinction to date."
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
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Good evening, there was already an injury, huh?
Giovanni Trapattoni, falling off his chair