Tuesday, September 13, 2005
A strange kidnapping
The daughter of a Dutch businessman who had supplied chemicals to Saddam's government during the 1980s has been kidnapped. The brief note in a slideshow caption is a bit peculiar:
This is the only English-language report I've been able to dig up, and it is too short to tell us whether there is any reason other than coincidence to believe that there is a connection between the kidnapping and Melchers' father's dealings with Saddam Hussein. Perhaps this is just rank sensationalism on the A.P.'s part. Or perhaps they are wondering whether the kidnapping is to interdict testimony about chemical weapons at Saddam's trial this fall.
Dutch police said Tuesday Sept. 13, 2005, that armed men have kidnapped a woman whose family owns a multimillion euro (dollar) company, and a search was under way. Police said they received a report late Monday that robbers had broken into the home of Claudia Melchers, 37, and she was taken away. They said they were treating it as a kidnapping. Melchers family owns the Melchemie chemicals company, one of the Netherlands' largest companies, which had supplied chemicals to Iraq in the 1980s. It was unclear whether the possible kidnapping was related to the company's earlier dealings in the Middle East.
This is the only English-language report I've been able to dig up, and it is too short to tell us whether there is any reason other than coincidence to believe that there is a connection between the kidnapping and Melchers' father's dealings with Saddam Hussein. Perhaps this is just rank sensationalism on the A.P.'s part. Or perhaps they are wondering whether the kidnapping is to interdict testimony about chemical weapons at Saddam's trial this fall.
1 Comments:
By 
Yishai, at
Thu Sep 15, 09:09:00 AM:
Strange, indeed. There is so much conspiracy and crime going on behind the curtain, sometimes all the information we get is this sort of hints of relationships and happenstance that might mean something more.
