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Isis 'kills Japanese hostage Kenji Goto': Government trying to verify video showing execution Isis 'kills Japanese hostage Kenji Goto': Government trying to verify video showing execution
(34 minutes later)
The Japanese government is trying to verify a video purporting to show the execution of the hostage Kenji Goto by an Isis militant.The Japanese government is trying to verify a video purporting to show the execution of the hostage Kenji Goto by an Isis militant.
Mr Goto had been at the centre of negotiations between the militant Islamist group and the governments of Japan and Jordan for the last week. Isis had demanded that Jordan released the failed suicide bomber Sajida al-Rishawi in return for sparing the lives of Mr Goto and the Jordanian pilot Mu'ath al-Kasasbeh, who was kidnapped in December. The deadline for the prisoner exchange passed on Thursday afternoon. Mr Goto is seen kneeling in front of a British-accented figure, thought to be the militant behind previous killings known as Jihadi John, before gruesome footage of his decapitated corpse is shown.
Isis had threatened to kill Mr Goto "immediately" if al-Rishawi was not delivered to the Syrian border with Turkey by sundown. Mr Goto, a freelance journalist, had been at the centre of negotiations between the militant Islamist group and the governments of Japan and Jordan for the last week. Isis had demanded that Jordan released the failed suicide bomber Sajida al-Rishawi in return for sparing the lives of Mr Goto and the Jordanian pilot Mu'ath al-Kasasbeh, who was kidnapped in December. The deadline for the prisoner exchange passed on Thursday afternoon.
Al-Rishawi was sentenced to death by hanging in Jordan after being linked to bomb attacks that killed 60 people. She is appealing her sentence. Isis had threatened to kill Mr al-Kasasbeh "immediately" if al-Rishawi was not delivered to the Syrian border with Turkey by sundown.
A video message released this time last week showed Mr Goto holding a photograph of what appeared to be the beheaded corpse of the fellow Japanese Haruna Yukawa, with an audio track said to be from Mr Goto outlining Isis' demands for the prisoner swap.
Isis had originally put up a ransom of $200 million (£130m) for the lives of Mr Goto and Mr Yukawa, before changing its demands.
Speaking to the camera, the masked man says: "To the Japanese government: You, like your foolish allies in the Satanic coalition, have yet to understand that we, by Allah's grace, are an Islamic Caliphate with authority and power, an entire army thirsty for your blood.
"(Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo) Abe, because of your reckless decision to take part in an unwinnable war, this knife will not only slaughter Kenji, but will also carry on and cause carnage wherever your people are found. So let the nightmare for Japan begin."
Japan's deputy foreign minister, Yasuhide Nakayama, said yesterday that efforts to free Mr Goto were "in a state of deadlock".
Sajida Mubarak Atrous al-Rishawi in her apparant confession on Jordanian television in 2005  
No mention was made in the footage, titled A Message To The Government of Japan, about the fate of Jordanian pilot Muath al-Kaseasbeh.
Al-Rishawi was sentenced to death by hanging in Jordan after being linked to bomb attacks that killed 60 people. She is appealing her sentence. Flight Lieutenant Moaz Youssef al-Kasasbeh, 26, was taken hostage when his plane crashed last week whilst undertaking US-led air strikes against Isis (EPA)
Yesterday, a source close to the Jordanian government reportedly told the chief international correspondent for Kuwait's Al Rai newspaper that Jordan would consider fast-tracking executions of "jihadist prisoners close to Isis" if the militant group executed al-Kasasbeh.
Mr Goto, 47, is a respected freelance journalist who reported from various conflict zones for Japanese media.
His last report from the Turkish-Syrian border town of Kobani aired in October. In his final video on YouTube before he was captured he explained why he was heading to Raqqa, an Isis stronghold in Syria. “Syrian people suffering for three-years-and-a-half – it’s enough” he said. “I would like to get the story of what Isis want to do in Syria.”
Mr Goto, a married father, was taken hostage by Isis shortly after his last broadcast. He is thought to have been attempting to rescue Haruna Yukawa, whose murder was confirmed in a video last week.
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