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| Monday, 12 April 2004 |
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Japan hostages said safe in Iraq, relatives anxious TOKYO, Sunday (Reuters) Three Japanese civilians kidnapped in Iraq were safe near Falluja on Sunday, Japanese media reported, but government officials said they could not say when they might be released. Relatives of the hostages, who had been cheered by earlier reports the three would be freed, grew anxious after a hoped-for midday (0300 GMT) release failed to materialise. "We're not getting any concrete information from anywhere. Are they really going to come back?" a tearful Naoko Imai, the mother of 18-year-old Noriaki, told reporters. Other relatives echoed her anguish. "Please help. Please help my son," said Kimiko Koriyama, the mother of freelance reporter Soichiro. Meanwhile The Arabic television station Al Jazeera denied a Japanese news agency report which quoted it as saying that three Japanese hostages held in Iraq had been released on Sunday. "We did not issue such a report," an Al Jazeera official told Reuters, referring to a report by Jiji news agency. Al Jazeera said on Saturday that Iraqi militants holding the hostages would free them in response to a call from the Muslim Clerics Association in Iraq. The Iraqi group had originally threatened to "burn them alive" unless Tokyo pulled out its troops from Iraq within three days. Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, facing the toughest test of his political career, vowed not to give in to their demands. Japan was stunned on Thursday when a previously unknown group released a video showing the three, blindfolded and with a gun to their heads. The released hostages are Imai, who had planned to look into the effects of depleted uranium weapons; aid worker Nahoko Takato, 34; and Koriyama, 32. |
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