Google Saves Journalist's Life

An Australian journalist who was kidnapped in Iraq and held for over twenty hours had his life spared and was released when his captors used Google to confirm his identity. From the AAP:

Iraqi militants who kidnapped and threatened to kill an Australian journalist "Googled" his name on the internet to check his work before releasing him unharmed.

John Martinkus, a veteran freelancer who has covered conflicts from East Timor to Iraq, was released a day after he was taken hostage by four Sunni militants and ex-Iraqi army officers.

Mr Martinkus was filming a report for SBS's Dateline program and was preparing to leave Iraq when he was grabbed about 5pm (AEST) on Saturday outside a hotel popular with foreign correspondents.

SBS executive producer Mike Carey said the journalist's captors had investigated his background online and saw he was harmless.

"They Googled him, they checked him out on a popular search engine and got onto his own website or his publisher's website and saw he was a writer and journalist," Mr Carey told AAP.

"They had thought he was working for the Americans as an informer."

In this case, modern technology probably saved his life, he said.

"It certainly did help," Mr Carey said.

Mr Martinkus said he was caught outside a Baghdad hotel occupied by journalists, directly across the road from the Australian embassy.

He said his life was threatened but was treated well once he told his kidnappers he was independent and not linked to the US-led coalition in Iraq.

"I can't say very much but ... of course they said they were going to kill me," Mr Martinkus told ABC's Lateline program.

"I was able to basically establish that I was an independent journalist reporting what was going on and that I had no links to the coalition."

My question is why Martinkus says that he can't say very much about the incident. Who is stopping him from speaking? Or is he incorporating the experience into his story and doesn't want to give anything away?