Freed German hostages arrive home after Iraq ordeal

BERLIN, May 3 (Reuters) Two German engineers who were kidnapped and held hostage in Iraq for 99 days arrived in Germany today looking tired but clearly happy that their ordeal was finally over.

''I'm happy to be home,'' Rene Braeunlich told reporters soon after stepping off a small plane in Berlin's Tegel airport. ''We had a really hard time. But we'd like to thank the people at the embassy and all those who worked to free us.'' Braeunlich and Thomas Nitzschke, 28, from the eastern city of Leipzig, were abducted on January 24 in the industrial town of Baiji, 180 km north of Baghdad.

REUTERS KD PC1848