National News Three Japanese hostages freed

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BAGHDAD (Kyodo) - Three Japanese civilians taken hostage by gunmen in Iraq were freed April 15 and arrived safely at the Japanese Embassy in Baghdad.

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

The three 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.

Koriyama, Takato and Imai were captured by the Saraya al-Mujahideen while on their way to Baghdad from Amman. They were apparently held in or around Fallujah, west of Baghdad.

In a video message broadcast April 8 by Al-Jazeera, the captors threatened to kill the hostages unless Japan decided to withdraw its Self-Defense Forces (SDF) troops from Iraq within three days.

But Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi promptly rejected this demand.

On April 11 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 Islamic Clerics Association was then informed by Saraya al-Mujahideen on April 15 that the three would be released. The kidnappers took the three to a mosque in Baghdad and released them there.

A spokesman for the clerics association said that growing public calls in Japan for the SDF troops to be withdrawn from Iraq led to the release of the three Japanese. The clerics group is believed to have served as a mediator with the kidnappers.

Meanwhile, the fate of two Japanese civilians, apparently abducted April 14, remains unknown. One of the two is Junpei Yasuda, a freelance journalist, while the other is Nobutaka Watanabe, a member of the nongovernment organization Trans-Pacific GI/SDF Rights Hotline.

人質の3邦人、解放される

イラクで武装グループに人質にとられていた3人の日本人が15日、バグダッドのモスクで無事解放された。

Shukan ST: April 23, 2004

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