- NEW YORK -- A journey
to the home town of Jessica Lynch by the Iraqi lawyer who helped to free
the young American soldier ended in embarrassment for all concerned when
she snubbed him.
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- Miss Lynch, portrayed as a heroine of our times for her
courage while a prisoner of war, was too busy to receive the visitor, her
family's lawyer said. Her saviour, Mohammed al-Rehaief, was outwardly understanding
of her failure to appear during his trip. "I know she had a very difficult
time in Iraq and she takes rest," he said.
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- However, Mr al-Rehaief, who has been granted asylum in
the United States for fear of revenge attacks in Iraq, was reported to
be disappointed by her failure to meet him on his visit to Palestine, West
Virginia.
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- The Lynchs' lawyer, Stephen Goodwin, denied that rivalry
between the 20-year-old former soldier and her Iraqi benefactor over competing
media projects was to blame for her absence. "Absolutely not,"
he said.
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- Miss Lynch's book, I Am a Soldier, Too, the fruit of
a £600,000 publishing deal, will be released next month and the countdown
to her first television interview in two weeks' time has already begun.
-
- But she has been beaten into print by Mr al-Rehaief,
whose own work, Because Each Life is Precious, was published earlier this
month. In it he describes how he braved bullets to reach the advancing
American military and tip them off about the young female private lying
wounded in a hospital in the city of Nasiriyah.
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- She was rescued by Special Forces a week after being
injured and captured in an ambush. Her ordeal briefly overshadowed the
army's march on Baghdad as the story of the war.
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- Mr al-Rehaief was given a hero's welcome during his trip
to Palestine and named an honorary West Virginian.
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- But the misunderstandings were not confined to Miss Lynch's
refusal to attend any of the ceremonies. Local people laid on an impressive
spread at a reception to greet the al-Rehaiefs, only to discover that the
family was fasting for Ramadan.
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- Even if the guests had been hungry they would have been
unlikely, as Muslims, to tuck into the ham sandwiches on offer.
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- © Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2003.
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