Purported US citizen released to UN in Iraq

(AP) The United Nations mission in Iraq says it has taken custody of a man whom two Shiite lawmakers described as a U.S. citizen who was held captive by an Iraqi militia.

U.N. spokeswoman Radhia Achouri says the unidentified man was handed over Saturday night and was at the U.N. compound in Baghdad.

She said the two lawmakers, who represent the hardline Shiite followers of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, claimed the man had been held captive for about nine months.

Senior Sadrist official Abdul Hadi al-Mutairi said the man was a U.S. soldier named Michael Hill. But the U.S. Army said it does not know of any unaccounted for troops in Iraq.

A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad could not confirm the man's identity.