Washington: The wife of a US man abducted in Pakistan is pleading for his safe return on the one-year anniversary of his kidnapping, saying her husband is in poor health and is missed by grandchildren who ask for him every day.
Warren Weinstein, a 71-year-old aid worker from Rockville, Maryland, was kidnapped last August after gunmen tricked his guards and broke into his home in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore. Al-Qaida released a video in May in which Weinstein said he would be killed unless President Barack Obama agreed to the group’s demands. It was not clear when the video was recorded. The White House has called for Weinstein’s immediate release but has said it won’t negotiate with al-Qaida.
His wife, Elaine, observed the anniversary of his disappearance on Monday with a statement urging his release. She said he suffers from a heart condition, severe asthma and high blood pressure and fears that his health “will deteriorate if he is not allowed to see the doctors and specialists that have helped keep him alive in recent years.
Weinstein was the country director in Pakistan for JE Austin Associates, a US-based development contractor that advises different Pakistani business and government sectors. The company has said Weinstein worked with a wide range of Pakistani government agencies, and that his work helped create hundreds of well-paying jobs and raise the standard of living in communities where the businesses are located. He had told his staff he expected to wrap up his latest project and move out of Pakistan within days.
In the video released in May by al-Qaida’s media arm and posted on militant websites, Weinstein sits in front of a white background, near books and what appears to be a plate of food, and makes a direct appeal to the president. “My life is in your hands, Mr. President,” Weinstein says. “If you accept the demands, I live; if you don’t accept the demands, then I die.” (AP)