Father Hani Abdel Ahad, the parish priest of the Wisdom Chaldean Church who had been abducted 12 days ago, was released yesterday (at 14.15, 12.15 Italian time) in Baghdad. The news was relayed by the website Baghdadhope. The Chaldean priest, who had been abducted with other young people who have been released, was welcomed by the auxiliary bishop of Baghdad, mgr. Shlemon Warduni. News have leaked out from some local sources in Baghdad that an "extortionate" ransom was paid, far more than it had ever been paid before for such cases. According to Baghdadhope, which closely follows the news about the Iraqi Chaldean Church, this abduction the eighth of a Chaldean priest of the capital "is part of the phenomenon of the persecution of the Iraqi Christians and is an effective method to spread more terror in the now-scanty Christian community of the capital. Abducting a priest is handier, because it ensures money and because it sends out a clear message: if the representatives of the Church, that however by now, given the precedents, are forced to take personal security measures, are the victims of abductions and violence, what certainty is there for the ordinary man? Actually, pessimism has by now caught hold of the soul of many Christian Iraqis, who, despite the appeals, the rallies, the international pressures, see no certain future in Iraq”. A future that, as mgr. Warduni has stated many times, even to SIR, "cannot be neglected by the Christian community of the world”.
