Basile Georges Casmoussa, 66, the Archbishop of the Syrian Catholic Church sits in a chair after he arrived back to the church in Mosul, some 360 kilometers, (225 miles) north of Baghdad, Tuesday Jan. 18, 2005. The Archbishop, kidnapped in Iraq on Monday has been freed. A ransom of US$200,000 (153,478) initially had been demanded but the bishop was released without the payment of any money, the Vatican said. (AP Photo)
MOSUL, Iraq (AP) - A Catholic archbishop kidnapped in northern Iraq was freed Tuesday after one day in captivity and said his abductors did not intend to target the church.
No ransom was paid to win the release of Archbishop Basile Georges Casmoussa, 66, of the Syrian Catholic Church, a branch of the Roman Catholic Church, the church said. Casmoussa, an Iraqi, lives in the northern city of Mosul.
"I'm happy to have returned to the bishop's office," Casmoussa told Vatican Radio. "I can say that I wasn't mistreated.
"I think that my kidnapping was a coincidence. It doesn't seem to me that they wanted to strike at the church per se."
The Vatican, which branded the kidnapping a "despicable terrorist act," said a $200,000 ransom was demanded. But Potris Moshi, an assistant to Casmoussa, said it had not been paid.
"He has been freed and he is on his way home without paying any ransom," Moshi said Tuesday when announcing the archbishop's release.
Pope John Paul II, who had prayed for Casmoussa's release, was informed immediately of the release, said papal spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls.
"He changed his prayer to one of thanks," Navarro-Valls said.
He added that the Vatican viewed the kidnapping as part of the general climate of violence in Iraq. He said the archbishop was well-loved in the community.
A priest in Iraq said on condition of anonymity that the archbishop was walking in front of the Al-Bishara church in Mosul's eastern neighborhood of Muhandeseen on Monday when gunmen forced him into a car and drove away.
The reason for the kidnapping was unclear, but Christians - tens of thousands of whom live in and around Mosul - have been subjected to attacks in the past.
Mosul has been a hotspot for the violent insurgency against the U.S.-led coalition in recent months.
Christians make up just 3 percent of Iraq's 26 million people. The major Christian groups in Iraq include Chaldean-Assyrians and Armenians, along with small numbers of Roman Catholics.
Officials estimate that as many as 15,000 Iraqi Christians have left the country since August, when four churches in Baghdad and one in Mosul were attacked in a coordinated series of car bombings. The attacks killed 12 people and injured 61 others.
Another church was bombed in Baghdad in September.