New IS video demands prisoner swap for second Japanese hostage after businessman executed
PUBLISHED : Monday, 26 January, 2015, 12:25pm
UPDATED : Monday, 26 January, 2015, 3:52pm
Agence France-Presse in Beirut
The extremist group claimed the remaining Japanese hostage was pleading with Japanese premier Shinzo Abe's (above) government to do a prisoner exchange. Photo: EPA
The Islamic State group has demanded a prisoner exchange for one remaining Japanese hostage after confirming that its militants had executed businessman Haruna Yukawa.
The IS said it killed Yukawa after the ransom deadline for both captives expired last week, but that the remaining hostage, journalist Kenji Goto, was still alive.
“The Islamic State has carried out its threat ... it has executed Japanese hostage Haruna Yukawa after the expiry of the deadline given,” the Sunni extremist group said on Al-Bayan radio, which broadcasts in areas under its control in Iraq and Syria.
“The second hostage [Goto] is calling on his relatives to put pressure on the [Japanese] government for the release of our sister Sajida al-Rishawi, held in the jails of the oppressors in Jordan, in exchange for his release,” it said.
Rishawi is a would-be Iraqi female suicide bomber on death row in Jordan in connection with triple hotel bomb attacks in Amman that killed 60 people on November 9, 2005.
Rishawi's name emerged on Saturday in a video released by the Islamic State that shows images of Goto holding what appears to be a photograph of the body of his friend.
Watch: Japan's Prime Minister condemns 'outrageous' hostage murder
Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe has branded the murder of Yukawa, a self-employed security contractor, as “outrageous and unforgivable” and demanded IS to immediately release Goto.
Abe said the gruesome video was likely authentic.
A somber Abe appeared on public broadcaster NHK demanding the militants release 47-year-old journalist Kenji Goto unharmed and offered condolences to the family and friends of Yukawa, a 42-year-old adventurer taken hostage in Syria last year.
“I am left speechless,” he said. “We strongly and totally criticise such acts.”
Yukawa’s father, Shoichi, told reporters he hoped “deep in his heart” that the news of his son’s killing was not true.
“If I am ever reunited with him, I just want to give him a big hug,” he said.
IS are demanding the release of Sajida al-Rishawi (above), jailed for an attempted suicide bombing. Photo: EPA
World leaders have also denounced the murder, with US President Barack Obama calling it “brutal” and British Prime Minister David Cameron branding it ”murderous barbarity”.
Japan dispatched a minister to Jordan earlier this week but Abe has declined to comment on whether he would ask Amman to release Sajida.
The video was released with an audio recording in which a man claiming to be Goto blames Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for his fellow captive’s death because he failed to pay IS a US$200 million ransom by the end of the 72-hour deadline it announced last Tuesday.
The voice also reveals a new demand for the release Rishawi. “It is simple. You give them Sajida and I will be released,” the voice says.
The Amman bombings were claimed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al-Qaeda leader in Iraq who was killed in a US air raid there in June 2006.
His group was a precursor of the IS, and Rishawi’s brother, Samir Atruss al-Rishawi, who was also killed in Iraq, was one of Zarqawi’s lieutenants.
Goto’s mother, Junko Ishido, was skeptical about the voice on the video claiming to be her son’s.
“I’m petrified,” Ishido told NHK. “He has children. I’m praying he will return soon, and that’s all I want.”
Yukawa was captured last summer, and Goto is thought to have been seized in late October after going to Syria to try to rescue Yukawa.
With additional reporting from Associated Press
