Marine's kidnapping 'may be hoax'

London Evening Standard | July 8 2004

Pentagon officials have launched a criminal investigation into the case of a missing US marine amid growing evidence that his "kidnapping" may have been an elaborate hoax.

Authorities have found no trace of an Islamic terror group which claimed to be holding Lebanese-born Corporal Wassef Ali Hassoun and threatening to execute him with a sword.

Authorities say a man claiming to be the missing marine yesterday called the US embassy in Beirut and family members in Lebanon to say he had been "released by his kidnappers somewhere in Lebanon" and was "waiting to be picked up".

However, there has been no further contact with Cpl Hassoun, an Arabic translator who was initially thought to have been abducted from his unit in Iraq three weeks ago.

Later reports said he had approached his kidnappers saying that he wanted to desert - claims strongly denied by his immediate family in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Military investigators are now said to have uncovered evidence that the 24-year-old marine had talked about leaving the army to join relatives in Lebanon.

It was feared last week that he had been executed by his kidnappers - but a previously unknown group, the Islamic Response Movement, denied this, saying he had been taken to "a place of safety".

Investigators suspect that Hassoun's abduction may have been staged by friends and sympathisers to cover up his desertion. His disappearance from his unit was first treated as a disciplinary matter by marine commanders until footage was shown on the Arabic news channel al-Jazeera of a blindfolded Hassoun with a curved sword held above his head.

Last weekend a claim was made on behalf of the militant group Ansar al-Sunna saying they had beheaded the corporal.

The following day, the group denounced the execution claim as the work of imposters.