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Warren Weinstein, 72, was kidnapped in Pakistan by Al Qaeda more than two years ago.
A Maryland family wants their beloved patriarch — held captive by Al Qaeda — to know that he is not forgotten.
Warren Weinstein, 72, of Rockville, Md., looked dispirited as he begged President Obama to negotiate with the terrorists to end his captivity in a video released this week. He added that he feels “totally abandoned.”
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“I wanted to die right there on the spot,” his wife Elaine Weinstein told ABC News. “Because he has no idea how hard we’ve tried to get him back. But there’s nothing to do to get him back, because they don’t tell you really what they want. I’d like to think that somebody can rescue him.”
HO/AFP/Getty Images
Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri claims responsibility for the capture of Warren Weinstein in 2011 video.
Weinstein was working as a consultant on community projects in Lahore, Pakistan, to help bolster the local economy two years ago, when gun-toting Al Qaeda madmen busted into his apartment and took him prisoner.
In the gut-wrenching video, Weinstein appealed to Obama as a fellow family man and said he thinks about his family every day.
And those thoughts are mutual.
Mike Redwood/AP
Warren Weinstein was a contractor working in Pakistan when he was kidnapped by Al Qaeda.
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His daughter Jennifer Coakley said her 7-year-old girl would constantly ask when her cherished granddad would come home and wanted to make sure he would be at her birthday party.
“Our daughter, we finally had to tell her,” Warren’s daughter Jennifer Coakley said to ABC News. “And that, I think, was one of the hardest things ever.”
SITE INTELLIGENCE GROUP/AFP/Getty Images
Weinstein pleaded for President Obama to negotiate his release from Al Qaeda in a recently released video. Above, Weinstein in a screen grab from a 2012 video.
Her baby boy, merely a toddler, learned how to Skype with grandpa just before the terrorists kidnapped him, the station reported.
The children are dealing with the tremendous burden of wondering whether their grandfather is OK — at the hands of terrorists — at such a young age, Coakley said.
RELATED: WIFE OF MARYLAND MAN KIDNAPPED IN PAKISTAN ONE YEAR AGO, PLEADS FOR HIS SAFE RETURN
“In my heart I know he’s coming home,” she said, tears welling up in her eyes. “And I try to tell them that. But, you know, it’s just really hard for them to understand why this happened to him.”
His other daughter, Alisa Weinstein, told ABC News she just wishes she could tell her father how much she misses and loves him.
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mwalsh@nydailynews.com
