Mellissa Fung Relives Her Month In Captivity
Posted November 9, 2008 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Chained, blindfolded and imprisoned in a tiny hole in a remote mountain area — that was Mellissa Fung’s world for the month she spent in the hands of kidnappers in Afghanistan.
The CBC television reporter (pictured, left) was kidnapped while visiting a refugee camp near Kabul on Oct. 12. She was finally set free Saturday.
A video containing a debrief of Fung by Afghan security officials was released by the government of President Hamid Karzai on Sunday. Fung, wearing a head scarf and a traditional Punjabi outfit, looked tired and a bit gaunt but was apparently in good health.
“They kept me blindfolded – not the whole time,” she said calmly. “The first three weeks they had somebody with me the whole time watching me. So they didn’t chain me. The last week they left me and they chained me.”
Afghanistan’s intelligence chief, Amrullah Saleh, was questioning Fung. He asked if her captors kept her in a well or in a house. Authorities last month freed two kidnapped Afghans who were kept captive in a well.
“In a cave. It was very small,” Fung replied. “They dug a small hole… and the hole (entrance) was here, and then there was a little tunnel that went into the cave.” Fung then drew Saleh a sketch of the cave.
“Could you stand in the cave?” Saleh asked.
“Barely and I am short,” she replied. “It was maybe five and a half feet long.”
She was handed over to intelligence officials near the town of Maydan Shah, about 50 kilometres southwest of the capital.
Fung was given packets of biscuits and juice once a day for food, but had no water to drink.
“They never hurt me. I’m okay. Tell everybody not to worry. I don’t want them to make a fuss.”
On Sunday, the Taliban once again denied responsibility for Fung’s kidnapping and instead pointed the finger of blame at a so-called moderate Islamist group — Hizb-e-Islami
“This is wrong (to say) that Canadian journalist Fung was with us,” Zabiullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman in the eastern region of Afghanistan , said in a satellite telephone interview with The Canadian Press from an undisclosed location.
Fung was in the custody of a little known local commander, Haji Zulmai, and Mujahid said he has no idea what deal was struck with the government to free her.
CBC publisher John Cruickshank said Sunday that the abduction was planned by armed men who were aware Fung was working on a story and they saw an opportunity to grab her while eluding police.
“She had been in a refugee camp. She’d been doing some reporting on conditions there and on difficulties in Kabul, and essentially, as she left the camp, within a couple of blocks of a police station, they pulled up in a van, jumped out, and overpowered her and took her,” Cruickshank said.
Afghan intelligence agents have arrested three people suspected of involvement in the kidnapping, the Afghan intelligence agency said.
Fung’s long-time fixer Shakur and his brother were also initially arrested but the Canadian government is reportedly seeking their release.
An Afghan freelance journalist freed after spending 11 months in a U.S. military prison expects Shakur will be released.
“He is inside but they should release him as quick as possible. The government should release him and should know already that Shakur is not behind this issue,” said Javed Yazamy, known by the nickname Jojo among western journalists in Afghanistan.
There is a matter of trust built up between reporters and their fixers he said and it’s a shame when he becomes an automatic suspect.
“I don’t think anyone would want to betray their friends. That’s the bottom line. If something happens like to Mellissa at the CBC it just happens.”
Yazamy was unexpectedly set free after being arrested Oct. 26, 2007, at Kandahar Airfield. He had been declared an enemy combatant by U.S. authorities but was handed over to Afghan authorities because he was no longer considered a threat.
The Hizb-e-Islami movement has deep roots in Afghanistan — both politically and militarily going back almost four decades. It was one of the groups at the forefront of the fight against Soviet troops in the 1980s.
It was founded in the 1970s by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, whom the U.S. State Department considers a a hard-core Taliban terrorist.
But the organization fractured and Hekmatyar formed his own hardline group, known as Hezbi-e-Islami Gulduddin.
Meanwhile, the Hizb-e-Islami was even registered as a political party in Afghanistan.
The group recently called on the government to accept a United Nations proposal that would see military forces from Islamic countries replace the U.S.-led NATO coalition that has been hunting the Taliban.
The policy statement, issued in Afghanistan on Sept. 23, said the deployment of “Islamic forces” could be considered a “step necessary for establishment of peace.”
Hekmatyar has also called for the withdrawal for foreign troops as a pre-condition for ending his own struggle against the Karzai government.
Canadian Journalist Kidnapped In Afghanistan Freed After Month Of Captivity
