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A Canadian lawyer abducted while serving with the UN observer force in the Golan Heights told Syrian state television he escaped his captors when the gunmen neglected to lock the room where he was being held.

“I was held prisoner for eight months, and I managed to escape,” Carl Campeau says in English in the interview broadcast Thursday. “They forgot to lock the door to my room.”

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Mr. Campeau, who was abducted in February, said he left the villa in Syria and ran into the fields, eventually making his way to freedom, the Syrian news agency SANA reported Thursday.

They forgot to lock the door to my room

UN spokesman Martin Nesirky said Mr. Campeau is now with the United Nations and “initial indications are that he is in good health.”

Mr. Campeau, who was working as a legal advisor for the UN Disengagement Observer Force, called his kidnapping “a nightmare and a terrifying experience,” SANA said. He added that there were Iraqis, Saudis, Jordanians and Chechens among his captors, the news agency said.