Hostage Crisis in Qatar?

What started as what I thought to be a publicity stunt has quickly turned into someone's worst nightmare. Someone titled Hostage in Qatar has been hitting the Twitter airwaves and his tweets have been relentlessly "retweeted" onto my homepage. I thought it was someone being facetious, just making a play on words like they simply would rather not be in this middle east sandlot. It turns out that "Hostage in Qatar" is a real person that really wants to get out of this country . Apparently, it runs much deeper than that. Keep in mind that I'm more of a chick flick kind of gal and this is more underhanded, double dealing, with a touch of espionage type of made for movie stuff. So, I just pretty much garner what I can from the tweets and blog of this Belgian gent named Philippe Bogaert and try to keep up. It sounds like this guy came over to work on a project, got promoted, became a fall guy when the company folded and is now stuck here because his Qatari sponsor will not give him an exit permit. Ok, to say that my synopsis is oversimplified is an understatement. I just don't want to repeat the story wrong, so please take a moment and check it out for yourself here. Now, there are a few legal twists and turns in his story so I can't truly say who is right and who is wrong. It seems that the jury is still out on that part, literally, since his court dates keep eluding him. Regardless of all the finger pointing, the sad truth is that this guy has a beautiful family back in Belgium waiting for this horror flick to be over. His story is picking up steam as he has campaigned hard to have his voice heard. The Belgian newspapers have picked it up and he has an interview set up with the Gulf Times here in Doha. Publicity is Phillipe's best friend right now. To be continued...


Phillipe's tweets in chronological order
Follow his latest tweets at hostageinqatar
Follow his Hostage in Qatar blog (or you can follow through my sidebar)

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