The hostage Goto,in a video clip they released, blames Japan’s prime minister for Yukawa’s death and says that the Islamic State now wants the release of Sajida al-Rishawi, an alleged attempted suicide bomber, who is believed to be connected to the attack on a hotel in Jordan in 2005.
Sajida al-Rishawi is currently in prison in Jordan. During the 2005 attack in Amman her suicide belt didn’t detonate and she survived. Later she was captured and confessed, but later retracted her confession. She was sentenced to death in 2006, but appealed to the court and the case is still in process of appeal.
On Tuesday, the Islamic State (formerly ISIS) terrorist group published a video on several extremist websites showing two Asian men wearing orange fatigues standing on their knees alongside a masked man in black holding a knife. The man said the militant group demanded a $200 million ransom for the hostage’s lives to be paid within 72 hours. This is the same amount of money that Japan had pledged to pay as a contribution to the US-led campaign against IS.
The Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe reiterated that he will stand by his country’s commitment not to pay ransoms while speaking on the phone with UK Prime Minister David Cameron on Thursday, Kyodo news agency reported.
Abe said multiple times that that he will not give in to terrorism. However, his government vowed to rescue the Japanese nationals, with the Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga stating that the government “is doing everything it can, and saving lives is the top priority.”
Meanwhile, Tokyo had failed to contact the militants to negotiate the release in the given time.
