Cimatu to probe reports Filipino workers were abducted into Iraq

MANILA (AP) - Ambassador Roy Cimatu is traveling to the Middle East to investigate allegations that a Kuwaiti contractor kidnapped Filipino workers by taking them to Iraq without their knowledge to build the U.S. Embassy, the Department of Foreign Affairs said Saturday.

Ambassador Cimatu was scheduled to arrive in Kuwait Sunday after testimonies before a U.S. Congressional probe revealed Filipino workers recruited by the First Kuwaiti General Trading & Contracting Co to work in Dubai were instead taken to Iraq without their consent, Foreign Undersecretary Esteban Conejos said in a telephone interview.

Two former employees of First Kuwaiti, John Owens and Rory J. Mayberry, testified that the foreign workers were mistreated.

Owens, who worked as a general foreman for eight months, said foreign workers were packed in trailers, lacked shoes and gloves, and were required to work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Mayberry, a medical technician, said there were 51 Filipinos on his flight to Baghdad but that all their tickets, and his own, said they were going to Dubai.

Mayberry said a First Kuwaiti manager told him not to tell the Filipinos they were being taken to Baghdad. "They had no idea they were being sent to do construction work on the U.S. Embassy," Mayberry said.

"I believe these men were kidnapped," he said.