LAPORTE, Ind. -- A video that purportedly shows a man who was kidnapped in Iraq appears to be that of a northern Indiana resident, ABC News and CNN reported Wednesday.
The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad said the man on the video -- broadcast Wednesday by the Al-Jazeera television station -- appeared to be Jeffrey Ake, a contract worker from Indiana who was kidnapped Monday while working on a water treatment plant near Baghdad.
Ake, 47, of LaPorte, is president and CEO of
Equipment Express, in nearby Rolling Prairie, whose products include machines that fill water bottles.
Al-Jazeera said the man asked the U.S. government to begin withdrawing from Iraq and to save his life. No group claimed responsibility for the abduction.
A person who answered the phone at Equipment Express declined to comment to RTV6 about the reports Wednesday morning. Equipment Express is in Rolling Prairie, Ind., about 20 miles west of South Bend.
LaPorte Police Chief David Gariepy spent about 10 minutes inside the Ake home late Wednesday morning and then told reporters outside that the family was following the FBI's advice in not commenting.
Gariepy asked for those in the community about 25 miles west of South Bend to "hope and pray and wait."
A yellow ribbon was tied around a tree outside Ake's one-story brick house. An American flag fluttered on a pole from the house.
"I believe it is a terrible situation for the family and we have to keep them in our thoughts and pray for his safe return," Gariepy said. "It devastates all of us as Americans when someone from our country is involved in something like this."
White House press secretary Scott McClellan said the Bush administration is keeping in touch with the family of the captive contract worker, but he said there would be no negotiating with the kidnappers.
"Anytime there is a hostage -- an American hostage, it is a high priority for the United States," he said "Our position is well known when it comes to negotiating. Obviously this is a sensitive matter."
Photos of Ake on his company's Web site appear to be the same person shown in the Al-Jazeera tape.
The Al-Jazeera tape shows a man sitting behind a desk with at least three hooded men holding assault rifles standing around him. The man also was holding what appeared to be a photo and a passport.
Ake's company has been working as part of the effort to rebuild Iraq since the U.S. invasion two years ago. In 2003, Equipment Express built a machine that fills cooking oil into containers to be used for Iraqi residents. The company also built a system to provide water bottles to be sold in Baghdad in 2003 and 2004.
It was not immediately clear why Ake was in Iraq or how long he had been in the country.
More than 200 foreigners have been taken captive in Iraq in the past year, and more than 30 have been killed.
Ake told the South Bend Tribune in an interview last year that his company had been successful because instead of selling the individual machinery to bottle liquids, it sells complete packaging lines.
"We are a very entrepreneurial company," Ake said. "We do a lot of exporting, a lot of our business is in overseas markets. We serve a lot of different industries."
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