Release
On August 27, the Palestinian news service Ramattan and Fox News reported that Centanni and fellow captive Wiig were released unharmed, shortly after a new video was released. In the video, both journalists, wearing beige robes, read statements saying that they had converted to Islam, with Centanni stating "Islam is not just meant for some people; it is the true religion for all people at all times." After being freed Steve Centanni stated "We were forced to convert to Islam at gunpoint, and don't get me wrong here, I have the highest respect for Islam, and learned a lot of very good things about it, but it was something we felt we had to do, because they had the guns, and we didn't know what the hell was going on."
After their return to New York, Centanni and Wiig gave an interview with Greta Van Susteren on her Fox program On the Record. According to Wiig, the kidnappers were convinced that Centanni worked for the CIA, in part because of his presence as a journalist at the deaths of Uday and Qusay Hussein in Iraq, and that they intended to kill him. Nevertheless, they also repeatedly promised both men they would soon be freed.
Read more about this topic: 2006 Fox Journalists Kidnapping
Famous quotes containing the word release:
“An inquiry about the attitude towards the release of so-called political prisoners. I should be very sorry to see the United States holding anyone in confinement on account of any opinion that that person might hold. It is a fundamental tenet of our institutions that people have a right to believe what they want to believe and hold such opinions as they want to hold without having to answer to anyone for their private opinion.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
“The shallow consider liberty a release from all law, from every constraint. The wise man sees in it, on the contrary, the potent Law of Laws.”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
“As nature requires whirlwinds and cyclones to release its excessive force in a violent revolt against its own existence, so the spirit requires a demonic human being from time to time whose excessive strength rebels against the community of thought and the monotony of morality ... only by looking at those beyond its limits does humanity come to know its own utmost limits.”
—Stefan Zweig (18811942)