NZ team got me out, says Wiig

New Zealand cameraman Olaf Wiig walks free in Gaza City with his wife Anita McNaught. Picture / Reuters

Freed hostage Olaf Wiig believes he would never have been released by his Gaza City captors without the extraordinary efforts of New Zealand diplomats.

The Rev Roger Wiig, father of the New Zealand cameraman, said in Wellington: "Olaf is absolutely convinced that if it wasn't for the work of the New Zealand team, they would not have got out.

"The New Zealand effort was quite staggering."

Olaf Wiig, 36, and 60-year-old United States journalist Steve Centanni were released on Sunday night, nearly two weeks after they were taken hostage at gunpoint while working for Fox News in Gaza City.

Details emerged yesterday of the efforts to secure their release, involving Palestinian officials in Gaza, diplomats from New Zealand, Britain and the United States and non-government organisations.

Peter Rider, the senior diplomat who led the New Zealand team in Gaza City, said he was in a hotel with Wiig's wife, journalist Anita McNaught, at the moment of the release.

"It was complete chaos ... suddenly the guards and the media started yelling and screaming, we heard some people coming into the hotel. Anita ran out of the room and there they were, looking pretty good," he told One News.

Mr Rider said he thought the key factor in gaining their release was a groundswell of opinion among the Palestinian people, achieved particularly through Ms McNaught's efforts.

"This wasn't a popular kidnapping, it wasn't actually helping the Palestinian cause, and in the end I think the kidnappers realised they didn't have a lot of sympathy from their own people," he said.

Mr Wiig said: "It was an incredibly complex bit of organisation that finally released them.

"There were clearly people on the ground making contact with the group, there was the diplomatic level, there was Anita somewhere in the middle with the Fox team, trying to get messages across.

"We got news from Fox that Olaf and Steve were well and were being treated well, on the second or third day."

The family was in frequent contact with several parties, including Canon Andrew White, head of the Foundation for Reconciliation in the Middle East.

"Canon White was telling us the group had asked for help in rebuilding, and White's team had started rebuilding the house they'd asked. Did that get them released, was it pressure from the Government - who knows?"

The release marked the end of an agonising ordeal for Mr Wiig and his family. "When the first video was released, that was particularly scary. It seemed to me that they were new converts. If they were fanatical, what might they do? It had been over 10 days at that point. How much longer were we to wait?

"We coped in a number of ways. We talked about him often, but we also did practical things. We weeded the garden."

The men's freedom came three hours after the release of a second video in which they said they had converted to Islam. They later said they were forced to make the statement at gunpoint.

Mr Wiig spoke to his son yesterday before Fox News was to fly him and Ms McNaught to New York. The family hoped to join them there soon.

After the release, senior Palestinian officials said they had been in contact with the kidnappers - the Holy Jihad Brigades - since day one.

Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh also confirmed that the kidnappers were a local militia, dispelling speculation they were foreign extremists with possible links to al Qaeda.

"Al Qaeda as an organisation does not exist in the Gaza Strip," he said.

The Jerusalem Post reported that a Gaza Strip police commander, Ala Hosni, said the group released the men unconditionally because they felt they were about to be arrested.

The kidnappers later issued a statement which warned "all infidels against visiting Palestine. Any infidel who comes to Palestine will be killed unless he converts to Islam".

Prime Minister Helen Clark said she had written to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas thanking him for his help in securing the release.

She said she wanted to thank him for the "wholehearted co-operation" of the Palestinian National Authority.

- Additional reporting by NZPA