Fox News journalists Olaf Wiig, 36, second right, Wiig’s wife Anita McNaught, right, and Steve Centanni, second left, are seen with Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, from Hamas, after their release at an hotel on the Gaza City beach front Sunday Aug. 27, 2006. The two were released Sunday, nearly two weeks after being seized by militants in Gaza.(AP Photo/Hatem Moussa)
Fox News
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Two FOX News journalists were released by their kidnappers Sunday, nearly two weeks after they were taken hostage in the Gaza Strip.
The two journalists were dropped off at Gaza City’s Beach Hotel by Palestinian security officials and appeared to be in good health. A tearful Centanni embraced a Palestinian journalist briefly as he entered, then rushed upstairs as Wiig followed.
Centanni, in a phone interview shortly after his release, said “I’m fine. I’m just so happy to be free.”
He said he was so emotional because he was out and alive.
“There were times when I thought ‘I’m dead,’ and I’m not,” Centanni said. “I’m fine. I’m so very happy.”
He recounted how he and Wiig were pulled out of their car on August 14 and taken at gunpoint into another car. The kidnappers blindfolded them and handcuffed their hands behind their backs with plastic ties. They were then transferred to another car and driven to a building that they later learned was a garage.
“We were pushed down onto the dirt-covered concrete floor and we were forced to life face down with our handcuffs on,” Centanni said.
“Olaf was in the same room with me. Our shoulders were wrenched back, very painful.”
Both of the men were forced to convert to Islam at gunpoint, Centanni said.
“We were forced to convert to Islam at gunpoint,” Centanni told FOX News. “Don’t get me wrong here. I have the highest respect for Islam, and I learned a lot of good things about it, but it was something we felt we had to do because they had the guns, and we didn’t know what the hell was going on.”
“My name is Steve, I am American, after I entered Islam I changed my name to Khaled,” Fox News Correspondent, Steve Centanni said in the Video.
“My name is Olaf, I am from New Zealand. After I entered the Islam I changed my name became Yaqoub,” said Fox News Cameraman, Olaf Wiig.
Wild Thing’s comment…..
I am glad these two men are free, I thank God for it, and I have prayed for their safety and that nothing would happen to them such as beheading that the followers of Islam love to do.
I am STILL praying for the release, ALIVE and well of the IDF soldiers that have all but been forgotten by so many.
Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, is a terrorists, an evil man from the depths of hell. IMO he is going to use this to say how wonderful he is ( which he is NOT) and how Islam is the religion of peace. ( which it is NOT)
When we all know Islam is NOT the religion of peace it is a death cult and let us never forget that.
I was listening to the three stooges on Fox & Friends and they were going on and on about how great it was that the two journalists didn’t have any animosity towards their captors, they were being professional in doing so, etc.. I found this smacked of appalling, sickening, and full of the usual liberal American guilt. We are talking about vicious animal terrorists, kidnapped two of their own (other journalists), threatened them, and the three stooges felt they had to humanize these terrorist and basically give them a pass. I thought the moral relativism by the news media was disgusting.
Fake conversion is not the issue.
The press pretending that Hamas and the Pals had nothing to do with this kidnapping is sickening.So now we are supposed to swallow the line that the “good people” of Hamas and the Pal authority worked hard to get their release from some mythical “radical” group?
Thank goodness for Brit Hume, he is the BEST! His commentary regarding the release and forced conversions of Steve Centanni and Olaf Wigg is just fabulous. He said something like: What a “great” faith is Islam when people are forced to convert at the end of a gun”? (something like that)
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