WARSAW (AFP) - A Polish woman hostage abducted in Iraq more than three weeks ago was back home after being released by her captors who she said had treated her well.
Teresa Borcz-Halifa, 54, married to an Iraqi and resident in Iraq for 30 years, was kidnapped from her home in Baghdad on October 28.
Her release, which sparked relief in Poland, a key US ally in the war which toppled Saddam Hussein, came just four days after British-Irish aid worker Margaret Hassan was feared to have been killed by her abductors in Iraq, triggering shock and outrage around the world.
A smiling Borcz-Halifa told a snap news conference in Warsaw just after her release was announced by Prime Minister Marek Belka that she had been "well-treated" by her kidnappers.
"I was held in a small, very clean room, newly painted. I was well fed, and I was given plenty of water and toiletries," she said.
"I was blindfolded during my liberation. It did not really feel like being in an action movie," she said.
An official at the Polish embassy in Baghdad said: "I am grateful to all the institutions that cooperated in this endeavour and spared no effort for success."
Borcz-Halifa had appeared in two video cassettes appealing to the Polish government to help her and withdraw its troops from Iraq.
She had been abducted by the Abu Bakr Siddik Al-Salafia group which had been calling for the release of all Iraqi women prisoners held by the US-led coalition in Iraq.
She said she had been well-treated because of the religious beliefs of her abductors.
Belka would not say exactly how she had been freed, saying only that different services from a number of different countries had taken part in the operation. Nor would he say exactly where she had been detained.
Borcz-Halifa arrived back in Warsaw on Friday.
She said she would probably not return to Iraq.
"There`s no place like home," she said.
After she was taken hostage, Poland advised all Polish women to return home.
Poland is now the third largest contributor of soldiers to Iraq after the United States and Britain, commanding some 6,500 troops in all within the US-led coalition.
But Polish officials have indicated they want to end the unpopular troop deployment, starting at the end of January after the Iraqi election, and have criticized the United States for failing to provide enough military aid to Poland.
In June, a Polish contractor was freed a week after being kidnapped from the office of a Polish company in the Iraqi capital.
Coalition forces in Iraq rescued the Pole and three Italian hostages in an operation carried out without bloodshed.
More than 150 foreigners have been seized in Iraq since April, in addition to uncounted numbers of Iraqis taken hostage. More than 30 of the foreign hostages have been killed by their captors.
11/20/2004 - 18:19 GMT - AFP