Jesse Jackson offers to help free U.S. hostage
(CNN) -- The Rev. Jesse Jackson says he hopes to use his role as a religious leader to help secure the release of American hostage Roy Hallums, who was kidnapped three months ago in Iraq, the civil rights leader announced Tuesday.
"Religious leaders can often take a different approach and make a church-to-church, religious-to-religious moral appeal without entangling government in the process," Jackson said.
"So, we reach out to religious leaders in that area," he said during an interview Tuesday on CNN. Jackson then spoke directly to the kidnappers. "To whom it may concern, please let Mr. Hallums go. He is a sick man. He's no threat to anybody in Iraq. Please, please let him go on a humanitarian basis."
Hallums, a 56-year-old father of two, is one of three Americans known to have been taken hostage in Iraq, according to the State Department.
The State Department has been in touch with members of Hallums' family since his disappearance.
Jackson said he is working with Hallums' ex-wife and Thomas Hamill, a U.S. trucker who escaped from his captors last spring after being abducted for 24 days in Iraq.
While he has no plans to travel to Iraq, Jackson said if he gets a direct lead on finding Hallums or his captors, he will attempt to "make such a mission."
"We do not know who has him. We do not know who the central force is," Jackson said. "But they listen to CNN and BBC and Al-Jazeera."
Video surfaced last week showing Hallums pleading for his life with a rifle barrel inches from his head. The video offered no clues to when it was made, or whether he is still alive. (Full story)
Hallums and five others were taken hostage in a brazen, armed attack in Baghdad's fashionable al-Mansour neighborhood on November 1. A security guard and one of some 20 attackers died in the gun battle.
In the video, a visibly nervous Hallums says he worked with American forces and was "arrested by a resistance group in Iraq."
In 1984, Jackson successfully secured the release of a Navy pilot held in Syria. In 1991, he helped secure the release of 500 "international guests" held in Iraq and in 1999, he worked to convince Yugoslavia to release three U.S. soldiers held there during the Kosovo conflict.
CNN's Elise Labott contributed to this report.
