[300.2] WHAT NORMAN REALLY SAID...

The news agencies seem to be concentrating on one small excerpt from the BBC interview with Norman Kember this morning, so Ekklesia has put up excerpts from the full transcript, so that people can judge for themselves. In particular they are emphasising that he "thought about committing suicide." In fact this is from a section where Fergal Keane asks about his depression, and whether he contemplated taking his life. Norman says that he considered it in relation to the question of whether it might benefit the two Canadians. The BBC 5.30pm News this evening edited out this context. What Kember actually says is: “I did a bit, yes. Because I thought it might help the Canadians. If they got rid of the Brit then the Canadians might find it a bit easier.” The "a bit" qualifier is being overooked, too.

In any event, taking his life is a notion put to Kember by the interviewer, rather than volunteered. What he did volunteer, and which (rather predictably) hasn't been picked up by any mianstream media outlets so far, is the fact that Jim Loney tried to talk a young kidnapper out of being a suicide bomber. So far as we know, the boy escaped. He told the Christian Peacemaker Teams hostages that his family had been killed in Fallujah - the apparent source of his bitterness and anger. What Norman said - from Iraq captive Kember's BBC interview Ekklesia, 15/04/06. Pic: Jim Loney outside Abu Ghraib.

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