The kidnappers, calling themselves the Swords of Righteousness Brigade, have threatened to kill him and three other abducted Western peace advocates — an American, Tom Fox, 54; and two Canadians, Harmeet Singh Sooden, 32, and James Loney, 41 — on Thursday unless all prisoners in U.S. and Iraqi detention centers are released.
In his capacity as president of Pax Christi, the patriarch described the kidnapped as «men of peace.»
«They are friends, not enemies, of the people of Iraq,» he said. «In mercy and justice I urge those who are holding these men to release them as soon as possible.»
The campaigners were kidnapped from a mosque they were visiting in a Sunni area of western Baghdad. Kember, a 74-year-old anti-war campaigner, was in Iraq investigating human rights abuses.
