Roy Hallums (born June 23, 1948) is an American

contractor A contractor is a person or company that performs work on a contract basis. The term may refer to: Business roles * Defense contractor, arms industry which provides weapons or military goods to a government * General contractor, an individual o ...

who was

kidnapped Kidnapped may refer to: * subject to the crime of kidnapping Literature * ''Kidnapped'' (novel), an 1886 novel by Robert Louis Stevenson * ''Kidnapped'' (comics), a 2007 graphic novel adaptation of R. L. Stevenson's novel by Alan Grant and Ca ...

in Iraq on November 1, 2004. He was held in Iraq for 311 days and freed on September 7, 2005.Hostage rescues: When hope runs out, U.S. elite troops go in
/ref>

Life

Hallums grew up in Memphis, Tennessee.
/ref> In 1971 he married Susan Hallums and they had a daughter, Carrie Anne. The couple divorced in 2003, but remained good friends. Hallums had been working in Saudi Arabia since 1993 and eventually came to work for the Saudi Arabian Trading and Construction Co. After the outbreak of war with Iraq, Hallums went to Baghdad where his company provided food for the

Iraqi Army The Iraqi Ground Forces (Arabic: القوات البرية العراقية), or the Iraqi Army (Arabic: الجيش العراقي), is the ground force component of the Iraqi Armed Forces. It was known as the Royal Iraqi Army up until the coup ...

. After being released from captivity, he settled down in Memphis.

Captivity

On November 1, 2004, twenty gunmen stormed the compound where Hallums and his colleagues were working in the upscale Mansour district of Baghdad. Hallums was taken hostage along with Roberto Tarongoy of the Philippines, Inus Dewari of Nepal and three Iraqis. Dewari and the Iraqis were released soon after their abduction. On December 18, American diplomats identified Hallums as the American kidnapped on November 1. His family had pleaded for his release weeks before, however, and Hallums had been identified on several Web sites. Hallums recounted that '' The Jawa Report'' was where his wife Susan first saw his name mentioned in public. His daughter Carrie Anne Cooper soon set up a websit

asking for Hallums' release. His family also appealed for his release on

Al Jazeera Al Jazeera ( ar, الجزيرة, translit-std=DIN, translit=al-jazīrah, , "The Island") is a state-owned Arabic-language international radio and TV broadcaster of Qatar. It is based in Doha and operated by the media conglomerate Al Jazeera ...

. A videotape of Hallums was released by insurgents on January 25, 2005. It is unclear when the tape was made. Hallums had a long beard and was seated with a gun pointed at his head. "I have been arrested by a resistance group in Iraq," Hallums said. "I am asking for help because my life is in danger, because it has been proved that I work for American forces."US hostage pleads for life in tape
/ref> Hallums did not appeal to American President Bush, but did so to Libyan president

Muammar Gaddafi Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi, . Due to the lack of standardization of transcribing written and regionally pronounced Arabic, Gaddafi's name has been romanized in various ways. A 1986 column by ''The Straight Dope'' lists 32 spellin ...

to help earn his release. Gaddafi later called for Hallum's release. Roberto Tarongoy was freed on June 23, 2005. Tarongoy said that he thought Hallums was still alive and said that the kidnappers demanded $12 million.

Liberation

Hallums was freed on September 7, 2005, along with an Iraqi captive, when members of the U.S. Army's Delta Force raided a farmhouse 15 miles south of Baghdad.Roy Hallums is freed
/ref> The location was apparently given by an Iraqi detainee. When coalition troops arrived, the kidnappers had fled. Altogether, Roy Hallums had been captive ten months and seven days. He said that he had been bound and gagged for much of the time, but doctors described him as being in "good health". After his release, he called his daughter and identified himself by saying "This is Dad."American Hostage Freed in Iraq
/ref> Hallums story was featured on an episode of the TV series '' Locked Up Abroad''.

References

Book

*Hallums, Roy. ''Buried Alive: The True Story of Kidnapping, Captivity, and a Dramatic Rescue''. New York: Thomas Nelson, 2010. .

External links