American reporter is released
BAGHDAD, Iraq — American reporter Jill Carroll was set free today, nearly three months after she was kidnapped in a bloody ambush that killed her translator. She said she had been treated well.
Carroll, 28, was dropped off near the Iraqi Islamic Party offices. She walked inside, and people there called American officials, Iraqi police said.
"I was treated well, but I don't know why I was kidnapped," Carroll said in a brief interview on Baghdad television.
Even though the group threatened twice in videotapes to kill her, Carroll said, "They never hit me. They never even threatened to hit me."
The Italian news agency ANSA reported that Carroll underwent a medical checkup at the American hospital in the Green Zone.
During the TV interview, Carroll wore a light green Islamic headscarf and a gray Arabic robe.
"I'm just happy to be free. I want to be with my family," she was heard to say under the Arabic voiceover.
Carroll said she was kept in a room with "nice furniture," a window and a shower, but she did not know where she was.
"I felt I was not free. It was difficult because I didn't know what would happen to me," she said.
Asked about the circumstances of her release, she said, "They just came to me and said we're going. They didn't tell me what was going on."
In Berlin, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she was "pleased" by the news of Carroll's release.
Carroll's family said they were elated at news of her release. Her father, Jim, said at his house in Chapel Hill, N.C., that he was waiting to learn more about his daughter before making travel plans to reunite with her.
