Kidnapped Reporter Carroll: I Pleaded for a Quick Death

Posted on Aug 14, 2006

From the Christian Science Monitor

Jill Carroll, the 28-year-old Christian Science Monitor freelancer who was held captive in Iraq for almost three months earlier this year, has gone public for the first time with the story of her ordeal. She recalls beseeching one of her captors to use a gun to kill her—rather than a knife—when it seemed her execution was imminent.

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Christian Science Monitor:

My chief captor had an idea about how to prod the US government into action: another video.

A first-person account by Jill Carroll with contextual narrative by Peter Grier.

He said this one would be different, and left.

I turned to the two guards sitting on cushions a few feet away and started to panic. Really, really panic.

“Oh my God, oh my God, they’re going to kill me, this is going to be it. I don’t know when but they’re going to do it,” I thought.

I crawled over to Abu Hassan, the one who seemed more grown-up and sympathetic. His 9mm pistol was by his side, as usual.

“You’re my brother, you’re truly my brother,” I said in Arabic. “Promise me you will use this gun to kill me by your own hand. I don’t want that knife, I don’t want the knife, use the gun.”

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