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5d ago

Princeton Researcher Elizabeth Tsurkov Freed in Iraq After 903 Days

Iraqi officials say security forces found her detention site and transferred her to the U.S. Embassy, though the terms of the handover remain undisclosed.

This picture provided late on July 5, 2023 by Syrian citizen journalist Ahmad Mohamad who took the photo in Istanbul on May 26, 2017, shows Israeli-Russian academic Elizabeth Tsurkov who had been missing in Iraq for months.
Israeli-Russian Graduate Student Kidnapped in Iraq Has Been Released, Trump and Family Say
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Overview

  • President Trump and Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani announced her release, and officials said she is safe at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.
  • Tsurkov, an Israeli-Russian doctoral student, was abducted in March 2023 in Baghdad; a November 2023 televised video of her was widely described by her family as a coerced confession.
  • Kata'ib Hezbollah is repeatedly identified in statements and reporting as her captor, while an Iraqi government spokesman referred to a “group of outlaws,” and a militia source told AFP she was released without a military operation to avoid conflict.
  • Her family thanked Special Envoy Adam Boehler, U.S. Embassy chargé d’affaires Josh Harris and nonprofit Global Reach, and Princeton’s president welcomed her release.
  • News outlets cite extended U.S.-Iraq diplomacy leading up to the handover, but neither side has detailed what, if any, conditions were part of the release.