KEY POINTS:
Harmeet Sooden, the Auckland university student held by Iraqi rebels, says he and his fellow hostages have not had enough information from British and Canadian authorities to help them decide about testifying against their former captors.
A year to the day after he was freed by British troops
in Baghdad after 118 days in captivity, Mr Sooden said Briton Norman Kember, Canadian James Loney and he hoped to meet American military officials next week.
But Mr Sooden, who declined to be interviewed by NZPA but responded to written questions, said there had never been any indication the three men would have to testify against their captors in Iraq.
Mr Sooden, Mr Kember, Mr Loney and American Tom Fox went to Iraq as part of the Christian Peacemaker group and were taken hostage by a group calling itself the Swords of Righteousness Brigade. Mr Fox was shot dead two weeks before the others were freed.
Mr Kember told Reuters earlier this week that he would plead for the lives of the men accused of holding him and killing his friend Mr Fox even though he fears they could kidnap or murder again.
"I wouldn't like them to be released into the current mayhem (in Iraq) because I think they would add to it," Mr Kember said.
"But it won't help us if these men are executed."
Mr Sooden, who was born in Zambia and was a Canadian citizen, said when he arrived back in New Zealand last year he immediately applied for New Zealand citizenship because of the overwhelming support he received from New Zealanders during his captivity and when he returned,
"One of the duties of citizenship is to live up to that responsibility, for example, to redress the wrongs, past and present, inflicted upon Maori."
Mr Sooden, who was enrolled as a post-graduate student of English literature at the Auckland University, would not say if he was still connected with the peace movement at the university and with the Christian Peacemaker movement.
Mr Sooden said the first anniversary of his release fell very close to the fourth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq by the United States.
"For four years we have failed to support the people of Iraq and their right to determine their own future. It is not too late for us to question and challenge our Government's policies towards Iraq and the entire region."
He also asked if New Zealand would expand its immigration policy to accept more Iraqi refugees.
- NZPA