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Mar 14, 2008 6:23 am US/Central
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Families See Severed Fingers As Sign Of Hope
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) ―
Patrick Reuben doesn't like to think about someone cutting off his twin
brother's finger. But 16 months after Paul Reuben and four other
security workers were kidnapped in Iraq, the grim news that captors had
sent severed fingers to U.S. officials has managed to renew a sense of
hope.
"It shows that they've been alive recently," Reuben said Thursday.
The
families of the missing workers have gotten little new information in
the case, causing frustration and doubt that they will see their loved
ones again. That seemed to change with reports that five severed
fingers sent to the U.S. government matched the missing contractors'
DNA.
The FBI and the State Department on Thursday declined to
comment on the matter. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said
only that officials "continue to demand these hostages' immediate
release so that they can be returned safely to their families."
A
U.S. government official in Washington said the fingers belonged to men
abducted in two separate incidents that occurred a month and a half
apart. The official spoke only on condition of anonymity because he was
not authorized to speak on the record about the matter.
Four
of the men -- Paul Reuben, of Minneapolis; Jonathon Cote, of Getzville,
N.Y.; Joshua Munns, of Redding, Calif.; and Bert Nussbaumer, of Vienna,
Austria -- were guards for Crescent Security Group when men in Iraqi
police uniforms ambushed their convoy near the Kuwaiti border on Nov.
16, 2006. The fifth, Ronald J. Withrow, of Lubbock, Texas, was a
contractor working for JPI Worldwide when he was abducted earlier, on
Jan. 5, 2007 near Basra.
John Young of Lee's Summit, Mo., was
abducted with Reuben, Cote, Munns and Nussbaumer, but none of Young's
fingers was sent to the U.S. military.
Young's mother, Sharon
DeBrabander, said she's still hopeful her son will come home. She's
tried to get information without much success, she said.
"I
spend 10 hours a day, seven days a week on the phone to find answers.
Everyone's life is turned upside down, but our kids' lives are much
worse," she said.
Francis Cote, Jonathan Cote's father, said
he and other families were visited by the FBI two to three weeks ago
and told DNA samples had been identified as those of the hostages. The
agents would not say how they had gotten the samples.
Before
that, "we have no news, we have activity," had been the extent of
officials' comments on the hostages, Cote said. "It's very vague."
Cote
received calls Wednesday from Paul Reuben's wife, who was in tears, and
Munns' mother. The hostages' families frequently contact each other to
share news and compare notes, he said. Cote assured the women that the
hostages were still alive.
"It's possible they did sever (the fingers) to show proof of life," Cote said.
Patrick
Reuben agreed, but he said his brother's 17-year-old twin daughters
initially were told their father was dead. Then, he said, more
information started coming in and the FBI told his family members that
"the fingers were confirmed to be those of the hostages."
"I
wish the government could say more to the families, but I think if they
say too much, we get too hopeful, or they worry that we might pursue
the information on our own," he said. "I've always been hopeful, but
the reality of the situation has always been that it could go bad."
Casey
Reuben, one of Paul's daughters, said she initially felt pain from the
latest development, but she's chosen now to be optimistic. "I just pray
that he's doing OK and that he's making it through each and every day.
I just have hope that he's coming home," she said.
Munns'
mother, Jackie Stewart of Ridgefield, Wash., said Thursday that she
gave the FBI a DNA sample about a month ago. Stewart reasoned that it
might be a positive development: In the harsh desert, DNA evidence
could degrade quickly. So if the FBI had new DNA evidence, that might
mean her son was alive.
"A couple weeks later they called me back and said yes, we did have a match," she said.
She
said it's been difficult to accept that her son is missing a finger,
just as it's been difficult not knowing what happened to him.
"If
I think about it -- if they're feeding him, if they're pointing a gun
at him, what they're doing to him -- if I dwell on it, it makes me
sick," she said.
In Texas, Withrow's mother, Barbara
Alexander, told Lubbock television station KCBD that she found out
while reading online news reports Thursday morning.
"I'm just
... beside myself," she told the station. "Whenever you are surprised
by news like that ... you know, it just sends you way on back ...
you're just backsided."
Alexander said her son went to Iraq
to work as a computer specialist. She said the FBI, victim's assistance
and the State Department have contacted her about her son, but his
employer, JPI Worldwide, has not. She said all she wants now is the
whole truth and her son's safe return.
In Austria, Franz Nussbaumer said he was happy hearing about any sign that his brother could be alive.
"The
worst has always been the lack of knowing what is going on with him. We
believe that he is alive and continue to do so until the opposite is
proven," he said.
(© 2008 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)