LONDON (Reuters):
FREED CHRISTIAN peace campaigner Norman Kember flew home to Britain on Saturday following his rescue by special forces soldiers after being held hostage in Iraq for four months.
Kember, 74, a retired professor of medical ethics, arrived at London's Heathrow Airport at 1225 GMT on a scheduled British Airways flight from Kuwait, where he had been flown in a British military transport plane from Baghdad on Friday afternoon.
Looking tired and frail, but speaking in a firm voice, he thanked the soldiers who had rescued him and two Canadian colleagues from kidnappers on Thursday.
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"I do not believe that a lasting peace is achieved by armed force, but I pay tribute to their courage and thank those who played a part in my release," he said in a prepared statement shortly after arrival.
British Army Chief Michael Jackson had criticised Kember for apparently failing to thank the soldiers who freed him and his colleagues.
Sitting next to his wife Pat, 72, in an airport hospitality lounge, Kember said he was not ready to talk about his time in captivity.
He said the world should spare a thought for Iraqi citizens who had to live through the daily violence plaguing the country.
