Mufti's plea: free our brother
By Paul McGeough in Baghdad
May 9, 2005

As the deadline set by Douglas Wood's Iraqi abductors looms - it expires early tomorrow Sydney time - the spiritual leader of Australia's Muslim community has told Mr Wood's captors that most Australians do not endorse Canberra's staunch support for the US-led war in Iraq.

Echoing a new emphasis by the Wood family on the human rather than the political side of the plight of Mr Wood, Sheik Taj el-Din al Hilaly tells the hostage-takers in an Arabic-language broadcast: "I regard him as our brother, a fellow Australian, an innocent man." Calling for all Muslims to pray for Mr Wood, he says the 63-year-old engineer was in Iraq to help the Iraqi people and he should not suffer because of politics, "be they right or wrong". "We value your jihad and your efforts, and we call upon you to do something for the sake of our community and all Australian society, which does not support [the Prime Minister John] Howard's pro-American policies," the Egyptian-born Sunni tells the kidnappers. "In the name of God, we implore you to release [him] for the sake of the Islamic community in Australia ... and for the sake of the family of Douglas Wood

Yesterday the Australian taskforce in Baghdad set a mission for the only person in the city who claims to have opened communications with the hostage-takers by asking the tribal sheik and former Saddam Hussein general Hassan Zadaan to have a vital package of medicine delivered to Mr Wood.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2005/05/08/1115491048615.html