"But if Jesus and Gandhi are right, then I am asked to risk my life and if I lose it to be as forgiving as they were when murdered by the forces of Satan."

Van Wagenen was Fox's roommate in Iraq earlier in 2005. He left Iraq six weeks before Fox and the others were kidnapped to return to Utah, where he managed a clothing store in the Provo Towne Centre.

"It's a danger we all thought about even before we went," Van Wagenen told the Deseret Morning News the day the other members of Fox's team were released.

Van Wagenen said Wednesday night that he wasn't ready to talk to the media.

"I saw him on Sunday and he looked good, but he was very quiet and soft-spoken," Andersen said.

Van Wagenen graduated from BYU in August 2003 with a degree in German. He also speaks Arabic. He completed a master's degree in theology at Harvard Divinity School in March.

He began working with CPT after he got to Harvard and spent three months in Colombia in the spring of 2004. He's also worked with CPT in Palestine.

He went to Iraq in May 2005.

The following month, another CPT member wrote in an online journal that Van Wagenen gave chocolate to a 10-year-old boy who, according to his mother, had been shot by U.S. soldiers. The bullet had lodged behind the boy's eye and damaged his sight.

The writer, Greg Rollins, said that after Van Wagenen gave him the candy, "Nothing else in the world existed for (the boy) until the chocolate was gone."

About the same time, an Iraqi man approached Van Wagenen at a gym and said, "I just have one question: Why do you risk it? This is not a green area, this is a red area. You are not safe here."

Van Wagenen left Iraq in September or October 2005. He returned to Iraq in early November 2006.

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E-mail: twalch@desnews.com