JAPAN: Japanese hostage trio freed in Iraq

Handover to Muslim clerics ends nightmare week at gunpoint

The Japan Times
Friday, April 16, 2004

BAGHDAD -- Three Japanese civilians taken hostage last week by gunmen in Iraq were freed Thursday and arrived safely at the Japanese Embassy in Baghdad, government officials said.

Arab satellite news channel Al-Jazeera, which broke the news of the release, showed video footage of the three sitting on sofas in the Baghdad office of the Islamic Clerics Association and reported that they are in good health.

Their safety was later confirmed by the Foreign Ministry. In Tokyo, ruling coalition sources said Japan is considering sending a chartered plane to Baghdad to pick up the three.

They are Soichiro Koriyama, 32, a freelance photojournalist from Tokyo, Nahoko Takato, 34, a volunteer worker from Chitose, Hokkaido, and Noriaki Imai, 18, a recent high school graduate from Sapporo.

Al-Jazeera broadcast the footage after their release.

"We've confirmed that the three have been released and are in safe hands. I couldn't be happier," Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Masaaki Yamazaki told reporters in Tokyo on Thursday night.

Yamazaki said it has "been a very long week," referring to the seven days since the hostage crisis began.

He said the government has no information about two Japanese civilians feared kidnapped Wednesday in Iraq. Tokyo would do its best to rescue them if it turns out that they have been taken hostage, he said.

Koriyama, Takato and Imai were captured by an unknown group that identified itself as Saraya al-Mujahideen (Mujahideen Brigades) last week while on their way to Baghdad from Amman. They were apparently held in or around Fallujah, west of Baghdad.

In the video message broadcast April 8 by Al-Jazeera, the captors threatened to kill the hostages unless Japan withdrew its Self-Defense Forces troops from Iraq.

But Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi promptly rejected this demand and said he would not cave in to the demands of "terrorists."

On Sunday, the group sent a message to Al-Jazeera promising to release the hostages within 24 hours. But their status remained unknown, intensifying concern and frustration within the Japanese government and the families of the abductees.

The captors reportedly decided to free the hostages at the urging of the clerics association, Al-Jazeera reported. They also cited calls from the Japanese public for the SDF troops to be withdrawn as another factor behind the release, the broadcaster said.

Japan now plans to work with the U.S.-led occupation authorities in Iraq to try to find out more about Saraya al-Mujahideen, whose demand that the SDF be withdrawn in exchange for the lives of the hostages posed one of the biggest political challenges yet for the Koizumi administration.

Saraya al-Mujahideen was unknown before the three Japanese were taken hostage.

Earlier in the day, Dubai-based satellite channel Al-Arabia reported that Saraya al-Mujahideen entrusted a French journalist released from captivity Wednesday with a statement in which the group said it is abducting people from the United States and its allies, as well as others cooperating with the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq.

Dozens of foreigners have been abducted in Iraq recently, and some kidnappings have ended with the release of hostages, including three Russians, seven Chinese and a Frenchman -- all from countries critical of the U.S.-led war on Iraq and that have not sent troops to the country.

One of four Italian hostages captured earlier this week by a group demanding withdrawal of Italian troops from Iraq was executed, however.

The group that took the Italians captive said it killed the hostage because Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi rejected its demand to withdraw Italian troops, according to its statement aired Thursday by Al-Jazeera.

Italy's Foreign Ministry confirmed that one of the four Italians was slain. Berlusconi vowed the same day to keep the troops in Iraq.

Date Posted: 4/16/2004