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Slain American lived in hotel near American guardposts
Slain American Nicholas Berg stayed in a modest hotel near a U.S. military guardpost for several days before he disappeared a month before his decapitated body was found in Baghdad, hotel staff said Wednesday.
Slain American Nicholas Berg stayed in a modest hotel near a U.S. military guardpost for several days before he disappeared a month before his decapitated body was found in Baghdad, hotel staff said Wednesday.
Berg stayed in room 602 of the Fanar Hotel from April 6 until April 10, according to staffers who asked not to be identified. One of them said Berg lived in the same room during an earlier visit, which the employee could not remember.
"He was very sportive - had muscles - and liked the Internet," one hotel employee recalled. "He usually left the hotel in the morning and returned late, around 10 p.m. usually carrying a sack of beer and mineral water."
The US State Department said Wednesday a private contractor went to the hotel on April 14 to inquire about Berg but reported that no one there remembered him or could identify his picture. "The people we talked to at the hotel didn't remember him being there," State Department spokeswoman Kelly Shannon said in Washington. "We showed his picture to the reception staff and they said Berg had never stayed there, and also checked with another nearby hotel, also with negative results."
However, a hotel employee described Berg as a "nice guy" who "always smiled and said hello," unlike other foreign guests. "Once he told me, 'I'd like to learn Arabic," the employee said.
The employee said that on Saturday, the day Berg's body was discovered, an American in civilian clothes showed Berg's photo and asked if he stayed there.
"I gave them all the information we had," the employee said. The Fanar Hotel, which charges $30 a night, is located across a narrow street from the pricier Palestine Hotel, used by foreign journalists and some private contractors.
Anyone approaching the Fanar must pass through numerous US Army and Iraqi checkpoints. Armed American soldiers are stationed within site of the hotel around-the-clock.
