Slain American met with FBI while detained
BAGHDAD -- An American businessman who was beheaded last week was visited by FBI agents while he was being held in an Iraqi jail in late March and early April, and he remained in detention for nearly two weeks even though agents eventually recommended that he be freed, US officials said yesterday.
Nicholas Berg, 26, of West Chester, Pa., vanished from his Baghdad hotel April 10, four days after his release by Iraqi police in the northern city of Mosul. His body was found near Baghdad Saturday, and his death became public Tuesday when a video depicting his decapitation by Islamic militants appeared on the Internet.
In a lawsuit filed in US District Court in Philadelphia, Berg's parents contend that his incarceration, which began with his arrest March 24, prevented him from returning to the United States on a flight that was to have arrived March 30 in New York.
As arrangements were made instead to fly Berg's remains to Kuwait and then to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, questions about his death remained unanswered, including why he was detained for nearly two weeks, and how and when he was abducted and killed.
The Internet broadcast of Berg's execution and the disposal of his body constituted one of the latest and most brutal examples in a wave of killings and kidnappings of foreigners in Iraq. An independent businessman, Berg came to Iraq to help repair communications towers and had no affiliation with the US government, officials said.
In Washington, President Bush said there was ''no justification for the brutal execution of Nicholas Berg, no justification whatsoever. The actions of the terrorists who executed this man remind us of the nature of the few people who want to stop the advance of freedom in Iraq. . . . We will complete our mission. We will complete our task."
The video attributed responsibility for the killing to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant with ties to Al Qaeda.
A US official in Baghdad said yesterday that soldiers from the Army's First Cavalry Division on a routine patrol found Berg's headless body at 5:30 p.m. Saturday, hanging from a highway overpass a few miles east of Baghdad International Airport. His severed head lay on the ground nearby, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case.
Berg's parents contend that because he was detained by the Iraqi police, one of several security agencies established by US-led occupation authority, the US military effectively had custody of him and was holding him without cause. Yesterday, US officials denied that the military held Berg but acknowledged that FBI agents interviewed him three times during his detention before concluding he was not a threat.
A spokesman for the US-led occupation authority, Daniel Senor, offered little information about the case. ''I'm reluctant to release any details at this point," he said. ''The US government is committed to a very thorough and robust investigation to get to the bottom of this."
The FBI and the Army's Criminal Investigation Division are involved in the case, and the agency leading the investigation will be announced soon, Senor said. Federal statutes allow the FBI to investigate terrorist killings of US citizens overseas.
In interviews in Baghdad, two friends who saw Berg after he was released from detention said he told them he had been arrested at a checkpoint in Mosul when Iraqi police examined his US passport and noticed an Israeli stamp. Documents indicating an individual has been in Israel have long sparked suspicion and anger in the Middle East; many Arab countries routinely refuse entry to travelers whose passports bear stamps from Israel.
''He said: 'You want to hear an interesting story? They thought I was a spy because I had a Jewish last name and had an Israeli stamp in my passport,' " said Hugo Infante, 31, a Chilean freelance journalist. ''He wasn't [upset]. It was like an adventure for him."
Aziz Taee, 40, an Iraqi business associate of Berg's who has lived in the Philadelphia area for most of the past 20 years, said Berg ''was in a taxicab after midnight, stopped during a routine check. The police saw in his passport the Israeli stamp."
On a trip to Iraq in December, Berg flew to Tel Aviv and then Amman, Jordan, before driving overland to Baghdad, his mother, Suzanne Berg, said in a telephone interview.
Suzanne Berg said her son never mentioned an Israeli stamp as a reason for his arrest. ''He wrote us an e-mail about his detention and said it was because he was an American out late and it was unusual," she said. ''That's the first I heard anything about that."
After Berg's arrest, the occupation authority asked the FBI to find out what he was doing ''wandering around in a dangerous area," said Ed Cogswell, an FBI spokesman in Washington.
''This was something of an anomaly," Cogswell said. ''We wanted to clarify what he was doing. He said he was there for commercial ventures, and that proved to be the case."
FBI agents interviewed Berg on March 25, March 26, and in early April, and the bureau ran background checks to determine if he had a criminal record or any known connections to terrorist groups, Cogswell said. He said there was no particular suspicion of wrongdoing on Berg's part.
On April 5, Suzanne Berg and her husband, Michael Berg, filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in Philadelphia, asserting that the US military had illegally detained their son despite an FBI recommendation that he be released. On April 6, Berg was freed.
