'No cash deal' to free journalist held in Iraq

NO RANSOM was paid to free Rory Carroll, the Irish journalist kidnapped in Iraq, Dermot Ahern, the Irish foreign affairs minister, said yesterday.

Carroll, a journalist with the Guardian, was recovering yesterday in the fortified Green Zone in Baghdad after his release on Thursday.

It is believed he may be taken to Kuwait, from where he will be flown to London before travelling on to Dublin.

The minister said he did not know who had held Carroll, 33, captive in an unlit basement room for more than 30 hours.

"From our information they were under some control of people who obviously felt Rory should be released because he was a citizen of a neutral state," he added.