Captors release video of journalist

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Kidnapped British TV reporter appears unharmed; Blair says he's doing everything he `possibly can'

Jun 02, 2007 04:30 AM
Oakland Ross
Middle East Bureau

JERUSALEM–Alan Johnston, the British TV reporter kidnapped in Gaza by Palestinian militants 12 weeks ago, surfaced on an Internet video early yesterday, appearing subdued but also unharmed.

The video is the first public sign since his abduction that the Scottish newsman is alive, but there was no indication when the tape was recorded.

On a visit to South Africa, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said he "felt deeply" for the BBC correspondent and declared his government is doing "everything we possibly can" to secure Johnston's freedom.

"I urge those who are holding him to release him," Blair said.

In a statement issued from their home in Scotland, Johnston's family said they were pleased to see him alive and apparently in good health, "although it is clearly distressing for us to see him in these circumstances."

Wearing a red sweatshirt against a plain black background, Johnston, 45, speaks for nearly three minutes on the video.

He is reading from what is evidently a prepared script and occasionally stumbles over his words (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yy5gQWk22RY).

"First of all, my captors have treated me very well," he begins. "They've fed me well.

"There's been no violence towards me at all, and I'm in good health."

He goes on to express dismay at the suffering of the Palestinian people "after more than 40 years of Israeli occupation, which has been supported by the West."

Johnston also criticizes U.S. and British policies in the Middle East, including military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. "You see on your television screens the suffering as the armies of Britain and America attack," he says.

He is about to deliver a personal message to his family, when he is cut off by a man's voice, and the video ends.

Prior to his abduction by a militant organization called the Army of Islam, Johnston was among only a handful of foreign journalists who made their homes in Gaza, where he had been living for three years.

Last month, the Army of Islam issued another video that displayed Johnston's BBC identity card.

The organization called on the British government to free Islamic cleric Abu Qatada, who is being held behind bars in London as a national security risk. That is the closest it has come to issuing a set of demands possibly linked to Johnston's release.

Before Johnston's kidnapping in March, it was not uncommon for foreign journalists to be seized by militant factions in Gaza. But they were normally released within hours and without ill treatment.

(Courtesy:TheStar.com