Gunmen free kidnapped former sport official
A former Iraqi sporting official who was kidnapped along with more than two dozen others when gunmen burst into a conference centre was released today in eastern Baghdad, police and sports officials said.
Nashat Mahir al-Salman, 75, former member of the Iraq Olympic Committee, appeared blindfolded and unharmed in Baghdad’s Baladiyat neighbourhood, Iraq’s sport journalists’ union said.
Gunmen kidnapped the chairman of Iraq’s Olympic committee and at least 30 others in a daylight raid yesterday, on a sports conference in the heart of Baghdad.
Those kidnapped also included Ahmed al-Hijiya, chairman of the Olympic Committee, and the presidents of the taekwondo and boxing federations, according to police Lt Thaer Mahmoud.
The International Olympic Committee in Geneva, Switzerland, condemned “these acts against the sport community” and called for the immediate release of the hostages.
The abduction came a day after Iraq’s national wrestling team withdrew from a tournament in the United Arab Emirates after the team’s Sunni coach was killed in a Shiite district of Baghdad.
