Reply #23: The text for your OP is still at its link

[muriel_volestrangler]

and The Guardian still links to both it and the later story I posted from it's Rory Carroll page.

In fact, it's the text at my link that has now been updated (the full version for the Friday newspaper, I suppose, now it's past midnight). The interesting new bit is:

"They were Shia," he said. "At one point I was told I would be used as a bargaining chip in exchange for (Shia cleric Moqtada) al-Sadr people taken in Basra. My fear was that I would be sold on to the Sunni or Islamist groups."