Abducted Alabama man reunited wife after Afghan kidnapping

Posted 8:07AM on Thursday 24th January 2002 ( 23 years ago )

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. - After reporting he was kidnapped, tortured and held for ransom by an Afghan warlord, Clark Bowers has been reunited with his wife in the United States, his wife said Wednesday. Amanda Bowers told Huntsville news organizations in phone calls that she was staying with her husband at an undisclosed location, where he could rest and recover before returning to their home at Harvest. Clark Bowers, 37, drew wide notice last week when he reported in calls to his wife that his private humanitarian mission to Afghanistan had been diverted and he was being held by a tribal warlord for ransom. He said Friday that he was released on a $5,000 ransom after being tortured. His report of the abduction led to questions about his professional background, with the office of Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., disputing Bowers' statement in a biographical sketch that he once was Rohrabacher's campaign manager. On Wednesday, a Rohrabacher aide said she was mistaken about his former role. "I was incorrect," said Kathleen Hollingsworth, a district director for Rohrabacher. "In 1990, Bowers was the campaign manager for his second House campaign. I was just not aware of that fact." Amanda Bowers also defended her husband Wednesday after a CNN report cast doubt on his account of the kidnapping. CNN quoted an unnamed U.S. government official Tuesday as saying a tracing of Bowers' satellite phone calls to his wife showed that he made them from Pakistan, not Afghanistan. Amanda Bowers told The Huntsville Times her husband never claimed to know for sure that he was in Afghanistan. "He said 'I don't know where I am.' We started (looking for him) there in good faith," she told the Times. She said the FBI told her a week ago that it appeared his calls were from the Pakistani side of the two countries' long border and she was asked not to disclose his site for safety reasons. The Birmingham News reported Saturday that Bowers said he was released for $5,000, with $1,000 from a bank off a credit card, and that he took a taxi to Kandahar, Afghanistan, then another to Quetta, Pakistan, before flying on Pakistan International Airlines to Karachi, where the News reached him by phone. Phone messages left by The Associated Press at the Bowers' home in Harvest were not returned Wednesday. Craig Dahle, an FBI spokesman in Birmingham, said Wednesday that agents have not spoken to Bowers or his wife in recent days and do not know if he is back in the United States. He said the FBI agent in Pakistan did speak with Bowers by phone when he was in Karachi and the agency hopes to debrief Bowers fully when he returns. "We want to round this out and find out what happened and see if there's any more work to be done," Dahle said. "We got the impression he was going to tell his story when he got back to the states." State Department spokesman Richard Boucher refused Wednesday to say much more about the nature of Bowers' reported detention and release. "Mr. Bowers met with State Department officials on Saturday, Jan. 19," Boucher said. "At his request, and because he has not signed a waiver of his rights under the Privacy Act, we can't comment further." Boucher confirmed the meeting took place in Pakistan.

http://accesswdun.com/article/2002/1/203261