The head of the Iraqi Olympics Committee had just finished his speech when gunmen stormed into the hall.
They seized the stunned chairman Ahmed al-Sammarai and dozens of others, and hustled them outside into waiting cars. It was July 15, 2006.
Two years later, al-Sammarai, also known by his sports nickname Ahmed al-Hijiya, is still missing, along with 23 of the others abducted along with him.
Their plight has come to the fore this Olympics season because of a campaign by al-Sammarai's wife, Niran, who claims her Sunni husband was kidnapped at a time of sectarian violence and high-level government officials took little action. She alleges her husband was targeted because he resisted attempts to use the committee as a political forum.
"We have to put this matter in front of the law," Mrs. al-Sammarai said in a telephone interview from Egypt during a recent visit. "We need to put closure to this nightmare that we've been living through for two years."
Mrs. al-Sammarai's unrelenting quest for justice is rare in a country where thousands of people vanished in the violence that swept Iraq after the U.S.-led invasion of 2003. Most Iraqis are too fearful or lack the means to pursue the search for the missing.
Mrs. al-Sammarai has set up a new Web site on the case and is writing a book from London, where she fled last year after receiving threats.
"It's not only personal, I'm speaking on behalf of so many," she says. "At least we can raise our voices. ... Maybe we can put pressure on the government to at least give us an answer."
Mrs. al-Sammarai declines to place specific blame for the attack itself. But she faults the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for failing to investigate the attack or to arrest any of the kidnappers.
"They were abducted within al-Maliki's era," Mrs. al-Sammarai says. "He is the prime minister. He's supposed to look after the people."
Al-Maliki's spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh could not be reached for comment despite repeated phone calls. But an Interior Ministry official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information, said an investigation launched into the kidnapping came up with little.
The official said some suspects were arrested but were released for lack of evidence. He said the case has not been officially closed but the committee stopped work several months after the attack.
Ahmed al-Sammarai, a former basketball star and defector who held dual Iraqi-British citizenship, was unanimously elected as chairman of the Olympic committee in January 2004, a move that paved the way for Iraq's heartwarming reception at the Athens Summer Games later that year.
The former general, who returned to Iraq in 2003 after Saddam Hussein's fall, promised to sweep away "the painful past" of his predecessor, Saddam's son Odai. Odai was said to torture athletes who displeased him.
But Niran al-Sammarai says her husband quickly ran into opposition from Shiite officials who wanted power over the committee. He sent letters to al-Maliki and Sports Minister Jassim Mohammed Jaafar pleading with them to protect the independence of the committee, but received no response.
This summer, Al-Maliki's government said it would replace the National Olympics Committee because the panel was corrupt and frequently failed to achieve a quorum because most of its 11 members live abroad. But the move drew a sharp reproach from the IOC as interference in the work of the independent organization.
The IOC suspended Iraq's national team in May. A compromise later allowed Iraqi participation in the Beijing Olympics, but entry deadlines for some sports had passed.
Mrs. al-Sammarai saw the government's move as final proof of a plot against her husband. She stepped up her campaign for answers, giving television interviews and lobbying the Geneva-based International Olympics Committee to pressure the government.
She also says Youth and Sports Minister Jaafar did not support her husband. In a Sept. 5, 2006 interview with the government sports newspaper al-Riyadhi al-Jadid, Jaafar was quoted as agreeing that the Olympics committee led by al-Sammarai was illegal. He also listed four conditions that would help gain al-Sammarai's release, including the election of a new Olympics committee, according to the report.
Mrs. al-Sammarai argues that such comments amounted to tacit support for the abduction. Aides said the sports minister was out of the country and could not be reached for comment.
Mark Clark, a 34-year-old Briton who worked as an adviser to the National Olympics Committee during al-Sammarai's tenure, believes government officials supported the kidnapping. He expressed regret that the IOC had not made further investigation a condition of the agreement to allow Iraqi participation in the Olympics.
"This is a very sad lost opportunity and a crushing blow to the families of the 24 missing officials," he said in an e-mail.
Mrs. al-Sammarai says she appealed for help to the top U.S. commander at the time, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., and later wrote to his successor Gen. David Petraeus. Col. Steve Boylan, the chief spokesman for Petraeus, said the general had asked the military's intelligence, operations and rule of law sections to follow up in response to the letter last year, but that there were no new developments.
Many witnesses to the attack are still too afraid to discuss the issue, and others would only do so on condition of anonymity because they feared reprisal.
According to an account from Mrs. al-Sammarai and witnesses cited in an Associated Press story the day of the attack, the gunmen arrived in what appeared to be police vehicles. Most wore camouflage uniforms, and some seized film from the TV cameras at the conference.
An Iraqi official linked to the committee said the ringleaders appeared to be five men in suits who said an important government official was on his way. The official, who declined to be identified because he feared reprisal, said one man asked al-Sammarai; "Who do you think you are to challenge the government?" before ordering the gunmen to take the Olympics chief away.
"It was clear that the operation was well-planned because it took only few minutes and the people who carried out the raid knew very well what to do without mistakes," he added. "When the crisis ended, I rushed to my house and stayed there without going outside even to the garden for four days out of fear."
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Associated Press writer Sameer N. Yacoub contributed to this report.
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