http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/...erg/index.html
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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A coalition spokesman said Friday that U.S. military police may have been at the Iraqi facility where Nicholas Berg was held before his murder, but he insisted that Berg was never in U.S. custody, as others believe.
"To our knowledge, he was detained by the Iraqi police in Mosul," coalition spokesman Dan Senor told CNN. "He was in Iraqi police custody. He was met by U.S. officials, he was visited three times by the FBI, but at all times, he was in Iraqi custody."
"I think some of the confusion emanates from the fact that a number of the detention facilities throughout the country, there are American MPs who play a support role there," Senor added. "But it doesn't detract from the fact it's still an Iraqi facility, and I think once we do a little more investigating we can hope to provide more clarity."
Iraqi authorities said Thursday they held the American civilian only briefly before handing him over to U.S. troops, police sources in Mosul said Thursday.
Berg's decapitation was videotaped and the tape was displayed on an Islamic Web site linked to al Qaeda on Tuesday, sparking widespread outrage.
Berg's father Michael Berg said Thursday that State Department officials told him his son was being held by the U.S. military.
State Department officials said Thursday that they were later told the information they passed to Berg's family in e-mails -- information they attributed to the Coalition Provisional Authority -- was incorrect.
At least one friends and Berg's relatives said Berg told them he was in U.S. custody for about two weeks.
"Nick told me, 'Iraqi police caught me one night, they saw my passport and my Jewish last name and my Israeli stamp. This guy thought I was a spy, so they put me with American soldiers and American soldiers put me in a jail for two weeks,' " said Hugo Infante, a Chilean freelance journalist who stayed at the same Baghdad hotel. (Full story)
Berg's brother David told reporters that the family received e-mails from Berg after his release in April that made clear he had been held by U.S. forces. And Infante said Berg described being held in a coalition facility where Syrians, Egyptians, Jordanians and Iranians suspected of entering Iraq illegally were also detained.
Berg had been scheduled to return to his home in suburban Philadelphia on March 30, but missed that flight while in custody. His father, Michael Berg, said said the delay contributed to his son's death, since intense fighting between Iraqi insurgents and American troops broke out five days later.
Thursday, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said that State Department consular officers spoke with Berg in Baghdad on April 10 and offered to help him leave Iraq by plane to go to Jordan. However, Boucher said, Berg told the consular officers that he was going to go by land through Kuwait and had already made arrangements.
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Sounds like Berg was a pain in the US ass. They set him up to get rid of him AND win back more support for the war. Smells like rotting fish to me.
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