Feb 18, 2007 6:12 am US/Pacific
Suspect In Weisal S.F. Kidnap Attempt Behind Bars
MONTGOMERY TOWNSHIP, N.J. (CBS) ―
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Nobel laureate and Holocaust scholar Elie Wiesel. (File)
AP
New Jersey Police have arrested the man accused of trying to kidnap Holocaust author and Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel outside a San Francisco hotel earlier this month.
Montgomery Township police said they arrested 22-year-old Eric Hunt. He faces charges of attempted kidnapping, false imprisonment, elder abuse, stalking, battery and the commission of a hate crime.
San Francisco authorities issued an arrest warrant for Hunt on Friday.
Wiesel was a featured speaker at a Feb. 1 peace forum at the Argent Hotel. He was approached in the lobby by a man in his 20s who asked for an interview, authorities said.
When Wiesel consented to talk in the hotel's lobby, the man insisted it be done in a hotel room and dragged the 78-year-old off the elevator on the sixth floor, police said.
Wiesel began screaming, and the man fled. Wiesel, who was not injured, then told police.
Police have said they were aware that a man claimed responsibility for the attack in a posting on an anti-Semitic Web site registered in Australia.
Wiesel, who survived the Nazi death camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald during World War II, has worked for human rights in many parts of the world and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986.
(© 2007 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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