THE German Government angrily rebuked a former hostage yesterday who is determined to return to Iraq despite being held captive for three weeks by a Sunni gang.
Susanne Osthoff, a 43-year-old archaeologist, announced this week on al-Jazeera television that she would go back to her work in northern Iraq, trying to set up a German cultural centre in Arbil.

Angela Merkel’s new Government, which regards the freeing of Frau Osthoff this month as its first foreign policy triumph, is furious. It made huge efforts to secure her release and is widely believed to have paid a ransom.

It has now blocked all funding for her project and has told her that she should leave the region immediately. She is believed currently to be in Jordan, with her 12-year-old daughter, preparing to return.

ray paune - 1/1/2006

her passport! If she wants to go back then she should enlist something other than legal means to do so! She is obviously a faniitic of some sort and the world does not need any more fanatics!

Maggie Miller - 12/30/2005

Angela Merkel is finding out that no good deed goes unpunished.....now she knows how George Bush and most Americans feel everyday.