* American aid worker was held by kidnappers for 105 days
* Wagner sues charity run by prominent Christian preacher
By Joseph Ax
NEW YORK, May 19 (Reuters) - An American aid worker who was kidnapped last year in Sudan&${esc.hash}39;s violent Darfur region has sued the U.S.-based humanitarian group, run by a prominent Christian preacher, that sent her there.
Flavia Wagner, held by kidnappers for more than three months before being freed last August, accused the charity Samaritan&${esc.hash}39;s Purse of following "a plan designed to protect its own financial and political interests by minimizing the amount of money that it would pay" for a ransom.
Samaritan&${esc.hash}39;s Purse, based in North Carolina, is run by well-known preacher Franklin Graham, the son of famed Christian evangelist Billy Graham.
Wagner&${esc.hash}39;s lawsuit, filed on Tuesday in Manhattan federal court, also accuses the charity of failing to train its security personnel adequately and of willfully ignoring warning signs that abductions were a threat to foreigners.
The lawsuit also names Clayton Consultants, a crisis-management consulting firm that was retained by Samaritan&${esc.hash}39;s Purse to handle negotiations with the kidnappers.
Wagner, who is 36, was released after being held by her kidnappers for 105 days last year. "We thank God that Flavia is safe and free," Franklin Graham said at the time. [ID:nLDE67T1T3]
Wagner told Reuters after her release that her conditions had become desperate, sleeping under a tarpaulin in heavy rain with 20 armed men and drinking only camel&${esc.hash}39;s milk.
Abductions of foreign aid workers and international peacekeepers have been a growing problem in Darfur since the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant in 2009 for Sudan&${esc.hash}39;s president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, for crimes against humanity.
Bashir, who denies the charges, subsequently expelled most large aid organizations from Darfur, where 4 million people live in the midst of one of the world&${esc.hash}39;s worst humanitarian crises.
The lawsuit alleges Samaritan&${esc.hash}39;s Purse sent Wagner to the Abu Ajura area in May 2010 despite the fact that other nongovernmental organizations "had prohibited their employees from traveling in that area" because of the threat of kidnapping.
Wagner, a resident of Bronxville, New York, had been briefly abducted once before in the fall of 2009, which should have served as a clear signal to Samaritan&${esc.hash}39;s Purse of the danger, the suit states.
A spokeswoman for Samaritan&${esc.hash}39;s Purse said it is still reviewing the lawsuit and declined comment. Clayton Consultants also declined to comment, saying it does not discuss pending litigation. (Reporting by Joseph Ax; Editing by Jerry Norton)
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