Norman Frank Kember (born 1931) is an emeritus professor of biophysics at Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry[1] and a Christian pacifist active in campaigning on issues of war and peace.
On 26 November 2005, Kember (a delegate) and three other Western peace workers with CPT (American Tom Fox and Canadians James Loney and Harmeet Singh Sooden) were kidnapped by a previously unknown group calling itself the Swords of Righteousness Brigade.
[5] As the deadline passed, and with no news of his whereabouts, his friends held an hour-long silent vigil for him in Trafalgar Square, London.
[12] On 25 March, in a phone-in discussion on BBC Radio 5 Live, Colonel Bob Stewart, a former British Commander under United Nations command in Bosnia and Herzegovina from September 1992 to May 1993 suggested that Kember and people like him were a liability, since he had ignored advice not to go to Baghdad and the security services, the British government and multinational forces had diverted valuable time and resources to rescue a "foolish, albeit well-intentioned, meddling civilian".
In lectures and interviews, Kember states that what saddens him is the fact that he is alive and well, while people in Iraq, servicemen as well as civilians, are constantly threatened and many have meanwhile lost their lives.
[citation needed] Many individuals and groups asked for Kember's release; including: Terry Waite, radical Islamic cleric Abu Qatada, Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, and Briton Moazzam Begg, a former detainee at the Guantanamo Bay prison.
[17] A year after his dramatic release by a multinational military raid, Kember revealed his story behind the controversy of his captivity in Baghdad in his book Hostage in Iraq.
Qatada, who requested the release of Kember, entered the UK using a forged passport but was allowed to remain in the UK on appeal under the British Human Rights Act 1998 and European Convention on Human Rights, despite suspected continued terrorist involvement, and was held in prison until his release by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission.