{"id":66878,"date":"2024-09-21T19:52:27","date_gmt":"2024-09-21T10:52:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/video\/2024\/sep\/21\/new-zealand-pilot-phillip-mehrtens-speaks-to-family-after-release-by-west-papua-rebels-video"},"modified":"2024-09-21T19:52:27","modified_gmt":"2024-09-21T10:52:27","slug":"new-zealand-pilot-speaks-to-family-after-release-by-west-papua-rebels-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=66878","title":{"rendered":"New Zealand pilot speaks to family after release by West Papua rebels \u2013 video"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>New Zealand pilot Phillip Mehrtens has been freed after more than one-and-a-half years in captivity in Indonesia\u2019s West Papua region. Mehrtens, a former Jetstar pilot, was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2023\/feb\/14\/indonesian-separatists-release-video-of-nz-pilot-they-took-hostage\">taken hostage by the <\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/west-papua\">West Papua<\/a> National Liberation Army (TPNPB) in February 2023. <\/p>\n<p>A spokesperson for Indonesia&#8217;s military said Mehrtens was in good health and showed no signs of PTSD, though he had lost a lot of weight<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2024\/sep\/21\/captive-new-zealand-pilot-phillip-mehrtens-freed-in-west-papua-say-indonesia-police\">Phillip Mehrtens, New Zealand pilot held captive in West Papua, freed after 19 months<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/video\/2024\/sep\/21\/new-zealand-pilot-phillip-mehrtens-speaks-to-family-after-release-by-west-papua-rebels-video\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New Zealand pilot Phillip Mehrtens has been freed after more than one-and-a-half years in captivity in Indonesia\u2019s West Papua region. Mehrtens, a former Jetstar pilot, was taken hostage by the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB) in February 202&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[156,56,264],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-indonesia","category-new-zealand","category-west-papua"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=66878"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66878\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66879,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66878\/revisions\/66879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=66878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=66878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=66878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}