Video of kidnapped journalist Jill Carroll the night before her release is now being characterized by her employer The Christian Science Monitor as propaganda she was forced to take part in as the price for her freedom.
In the video, which first appeared Thursday on a jihadist Web site, Carroll praises her captors for treating her well and attacks U.S. policies in Iraq. On Friday, The Christian Science Monitor, quoting Carroll's father, Jim Carroll, reported that the video was made while she was still "under her captors' control."
Jill Carroll was a hostage for three months before her release on Thursday.
The CSM issued the report after Jim Carroll had a long telephone conversation with his daughter on Friday. In the video, Carroll appeared in a traditional Arab head-covering and said she had never been threatened or abused by her captors comments that bewildered many viewers and drew harsh criticism from conservative bloggers and commentators.
Before her release, CSM reported, Carroll's captors promised her freedom in exchange for cooperating in the making of the video, but she told her father she didn't believe them, because she had been promised freedom several times before.
The morning after the video was finished, she was released in a Baghdad neighborhood and pointed to the offices of the Iraqi Islamic Party, which then contacted the U.S. government, the report says.
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