Kidnap victim John Martinkus back in Afghanistan

SBS Dateline Video Journalist John Martinkus returns to Afghanistan to report on his time spent travelling with the US 82nd Airborne in Afghanistan. John was kidnapped in 2004, where he was also embedded with US forces. At the time the BBC reported that Google saved him when his captors said they checked Google to confirm his identity,

“They Googled him and then went onto a web site – either his own or his book publisher’s web site, I don’t know which one – and saw that he was who he was, and that was instrumental in letting him go, I think, or swinging their decision,” he told AP news agency. link

These video reports are part of a programme called The Coldest Winter which airs this Wednesday March 5 at 8:30pm on SBS TV in Australia.