Iraq

Iraq hostage runs for freedom

Truck driver Thomas Hamill of Mississippi is safe after prying open a door and catching up to a convoy. His hometown rejoices.

BAGHDAD - In a daring escape, American hostage Thomas Hamill pried open the doors of the house where he was being held late Sunday morning and ran a half-mile to a military convoy that was passing by, officials and his wife said.

Hamill, 43, of Macon, Miss., identified himself to the U.S. soldiers, then led them back to his Iraqi captors, two of whom were captured.

"He got a chance to escape," Kellie Hamill, Hamill's wife, told NBC television from the family's home in Macon, Miss. "He was locked up in a room somewhere. He got out and there was a military convoy coming by."

The news caused jubilation in his hometown, where the mayor promised "a parade that will not end" when he returns home.

Hamill was taken by helicopter to a field hospital, and then to Baghdad. Maj. Neal E. O'Brien, a spokesman for the 1st Infantry Division, said he is in stable condition with an infected gunshot wound in his left arm.

The video images of Hamill soon after his abduction showed his left arm in a sling, suggesting he was wounded during the attack on his convoy.

Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the chief U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, said Hamill was meeting with U.S. officials seeking details about his captivity and the people who held him.

"He has spoken to his family, and now he is ready to get back to work," Kimmitt told reporters.

Hamill, a truck driver for a Halliburton Corp. subsidiary, escaped from a house near Balad, about 50 miles north of Baghdad, three weeks after he was kidnapped April 9 by gunmen who blasted the convoy he was driving near the Abu Ghraib prison west of Baghdad. An American soldier abducted in the same attack remains missing, and at least four of Hamill's co-workers were killed.

Hamill had not been heard from since the day after the attack, when his kidnappers released a video of him standing in front of an Iraqi flag and threatened to kill him within 12 hours unless the United States ended its siege of Fallujah, 35 miles west of Baghdad.

Hamill's wife, Kellie, was called about 5:50 a.m. CDT with news of his escape. She said it was "the best wakeup call I've ever had."

Kellie said one of the first things she did was to wake up their children.

"There has been a lot of praying, and I am so grateful to everybody," she said. "We're all so relieved, so excited."

She said she had no idea when her husband would be returning home or when she would be able to see him.

"I want everybody to know he's been found," she added. "I'm going to be shouting it from the rooftops."

She later spoke to her husband.

"He sounded wonderful, so wonderful. He said he was fine," she told the Associated Press from their Mississippi home. "He said he was more worried about his mom, his grandmother, me and our kids."

Kellie Hamill said her husband told her that he pried a door open at the house where he was being held after he heard a U.S. Army patrol nearby. "He said he ran half a mile down the road and got with the convoy. Isn't that something?" she said.

Hamill's 12-year-old daughter, Tori, said she talked briefly to her father.

"I told him that I loved him," she said.

Thomas Hamill's father, Leo, said he fell asleep Saturday night while watching a television newscast and woke Sunday to church programming being interrupted by a bulletin reporting his son's escape.

"I knew when I saw him on TV, I knew it was him," the teary-eyed father said. "I hoped they would return him safe."

Promising to "grab and hug his neck" upon his son's return, Leo Hamill raised his hands skyward and proclaimed Sunday "a beautiful day."

President Bush learned of Hamill's escape Sunday morning.

"It's great news for all Americans, and the president is happy for Mr. Hamill and family," White House spokeswoman Erin Healy said.

Hamill's abduction came at the height of the wave of kidnappings of foreigners sparked by the intense violence that began a month ago. Up to 40 people from several nations were abducted, though most were later freed. One hostage, an Italian, was executed by his captors.

An American soldier, Pfc. Keith M. Maupin, remains in the hands of kidnappers, as do three other Italian security guards.

Maupin, who grew up near Batavia, Ohio, and Hamill were in the same convoy that came under attack in Abu Ghraib amid an insurgent campaign against supply routes around the capital.

Besides Hamill and Maupin, six other KBR employees and another U.S. soldier initially were reported missing.

The bodies of four KBR employees were later found in a shallow grave near the site of the attack. The body of Sgt. Elmer Krause, of Greensboro, N.C., also was found.

Halliburton said in its statement that it still had no information on the two KBR employees still missing.

Hamill, a dairy farmer who signed on with KBR in Iraq to pay off debts, was filmed as he was being abducted. The insurgents allowed an Australian camera crew to film him in the back seat of the gunmen's car. Hamill identified himself before the car sped off.

The next day, the Arab TV station al-Jazeera showed the video of Hamill standing in front of an Iraqi flag.

"Our only demand is to remove the siege from the city of mosques," one kidnapper said in the tape. "If you don't respond within 12 hours ... he will be treated worse than those who were killed and burned in Fallujah."

That statement was a reference to four American security contractors who were killed and mutilated in Fallujah on March 30.

- Information from the Associated Press and Washington Post was used in this report.

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