French reporter Florence Aubenas, released on June 11, 2005 after being held as a hostage for 157 days in Iraq, gave the press a heartbreaking story of her abduction by the Islamists. Libération – the daily for which she works – concluded, out of this experience, that the Iraqi resistance is composed of fanatics only.
However, as we explained in our columns two days before her release, there is every indication that Aubenas was not abducted for political reasons, but for more sordid ones. She was kidnapped by order of Romanian businessman Omar Haysam and exchanged for a strong ransom, paid by a new shareholder of her newspaper. Haysam had had three Romanian journalists kidnapped: Marie Jeanne Ion, Sorin Miscoci and Ovidiu Ohanesian, to have the merit of their liberation and thus escape justice for his mafia activities in Romania.
After having heard Florence Aubenas’s testimony, several of our readers reproached us for having presented a version of the facts that she was denying. Among other things, the French reporter said that she had been arrested only with her guide and that she had not had any contacts with her Romanian colleagues.
However, according to the Evenimentul Zilei daily, Florence Aubenas was discreetly attending Sorin Miscoci’s wedding in Sibiu on Sunday, September 18, 2005, whom she claims not to know.