Father finds justice amid anarchy

[Kadie]

Father finds justice amid anarchy
After his son is abducted, he turns tables on kidnapper

Borzou Daragahi, Chronicle Foreign Service
Tuesday, June 8, 2004



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Baghdad -- As he watches his son's kidnapper walk free and out of his life, Ali Sayadan al-Obeidi wishes him good riddance and says he has found inner peace after nearly two months of torment.

The retired educator's son Farouk was abducted by a criminal gang in April and freed only after al-Obeidi kidnapped one of the kidnappers.

"I always knew that almighty God would bring my son back," al-Obeidi says. "I know only God hands down justice."

But al-Obeidi's is not really a tale of justice. It's a story of fear that drove an educated middle-class Iraqi to take the law and his Kalashnikov rifle into his own hands, spending night after night staking out his front door in hopes of confronting the men who took his beloved 4-year-old after the police told him there was nothing they could do.

And it was rage at the anarchy that has engulfed Iraq since the United States toppled Saddam Hussein that impelled a normally law-abiding man to hold the kidnapper hostage for six weeks, demanding -- in an ancient form of justice -- that his tribe cough up money for his safe return.

more... http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/06/08/MNG3772FII1.DTL

[Demeter]

1. Salute the Brave Father

And envy his good fortune--let us hope our good fortune is to never be reduced to that level of desperation--and this from a woman who hunted down a deadbeat dad for 6 long years! (Found him, too!)