Navy Investigates Cause Of Marine's Disappearance
Marine Has Been Missing Since June
POSTED: 3:57 pm PDT July 7, 2004
UPDATED: 10:12 pm PDT July 7, 2004
CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. -- According to NBC News, the Navy has launched a
criminal investigation into the disappearance of a Marine who was reportedly
taken hostage and threatened with beheading by Iraqi insurgents.
NBC News said the investigation is attempting to determine whether the Marine's
kidnapping was part of an elaborate hoax.
Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun was first listed as missing, then captured. On
Wednesday, however, Pentagon sources told NBC News that the Navy had launched a
criminal investigation into the possibility that the Camp Pendleton-based
Hassoun staged his own abduction.
Hassoun was reported missing June 21, and a week later, video surfaced with
pictures of him blindfolded with a sword held by his head. On the tape, his
captors threatened to kill him.
Secretary of State Colin Powell said Wednesday that government officials had
received reports that a Marine who was threatened with beheading by Iraqi
insurgents may have made contact with "various individuals" and may be in
Lebanon.
Powell made the comments at a news conference at the State Department. Other
government officials said on Wednesday that a person claiming to be Hassoun
called the U.S. embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, and said he was safe.
According to NBC News, the embassy in Beirut is still trying to determine where
the call originated. A senior official told NBC News on condition of anonymity
that the reports being discussed at the State Department were both internal
ones as well as others from the media. The official said Hassoun is "reportedly
safely in Lebanon."
NBC News has learned that Hassoun's family is saying that he called them from
an embassy in Lebanon and that it was told by one of Hassoun's cousins that
something good had happened and that the family planned to have a news
conference later on Wednesday.
Because the investigation is ongoing, military officials refused to say
officially if Hassoun's abduction was a hoax, but they did tell NBC News that
Hassoun talked openly talked about leaving his unit to join his family.
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