The Hindu : Front Page : American hostage beheaded

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jun 19, 2004

Front Page

Front Page

American hostage beheaded

By Atul Aneja

MANAMA, JUNE 18. Al-Qaeda militants have beheaded an American engineer whom they had taken hostage last week and had threatened to kill in case their demands were not met.

The Saudi owned Al-Arabiya television network said that Paul Marshall Johnson had been executed, and an Islamist website showed photographs of the apparent beheading.

The Al-Qaeda had asked the Government of Saudi Arabia to free jailed militants by Friday, or else it would kill Mr. Johnson. Mr. Johnson, an Apache helicopter engineer, was abducted in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, last Saturday.

"As we promised the Mujahideen, we have beheaded the American hostage, Paul Marshall, after the deadline that the Mujahideen gave to the tyrannical Saudi Government passed," a statement signed by the Organisation of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula said on the Al-Islah website. Analysts say that one of the reasons for Mr. Johnson's killing was that he was associated with the Apache helicopter — the symbol of Israeli suppression of Palestinians and its use by the U.S. to counter the resistance to its occupation of Iraq.

Earlier Saudi Arabian security forces, aided by a 20-member team of the Federal Bureau of Investigation — having expertise in hostage rescue and negotiations — had intensified its search for Mr. Johnson. The kidnappers had released a videotape of Mr. Johnson on Tuesday night, saying they would kill him unless their demands were met.

More than 15,000 Saudi security personnel had been involved in the door-to-door search in Riyadh. By Thursday night, more than 1,200 homes had been searched.

The public response to the kidnapping of the U.S. engineer had been mixed.

Anti-American sentiment, driven by the U.S. support for Israeli intrusions in the Palestinian territories, and abuse of prisoners in Baghdad's Abu Ghraib jail have reportedly been running particularly high in Riyadh's less affluent western and southern districts.

But the preacher of Riyadh's Imam Sultana Mosque had urged the kidnappers to release Mr. Johnson in a column published in the Al-Riyadh on Friday. Mr. Johnson's wife from Thailand, Thanom, had appealed for her husband's release in an interview broadcast on Friday on the Saudi-owned satellite television station, Al-Arabiya.

"When I see his picture in television, I fall down,'' she said. "When I hear the name Paul Johnson, I cry a lot. He is my only family here.'' Her husband, she said, was a diabetic, who needed regular medication.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Front Page