Primary Links:
Join our list
Click here sign up for the CPT-UK email list. It is a low volume list that we use it to send out occasional announcements.
Upcoming events
Main CPT site
For more information about the work of Christian Peacemaker Teams around the world, be sure to visit the main CPT website at www.cpt.org
CPT hostages call for forgiveness
Submitted by justinalexander on 8 December, 2006 - 13:24.
Speaking at a press conference in London, Jim Loney, Norman Kember and Harmeet Singh Sooden called for restorative justice not the death penalty for their former captors.
"We unconditionally forgive our captors for abducting and holding us. We have no desire to punish them. Punishment can never restore what was taken from us.
What our captors did was wrong. They caused us, our families and our friends great suffering. Yet we bear no malice towards them and have no wish for retribution. Should those who have been charged with holding us hostage be brought to trial and convicted, we ask that they be granted all possible leniency. We categorically lay aside any rights we may have over them."
Kidnapping is a capital offence in Iraq and we understand that some of our captors could be sentenced to death. The death penalty is an irrevocable judgment. It erases all possibility that those who have harmed others, even seriously, can yet turn to good. We categorically oppose the death penalty.