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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
(about 1 hour later)
The Japanese government is trying to verify a video purporting to show the execution of the hostage Kenji Goto by an Isis militant. Islamic State (Isis) militants have released a video which appeared to show the murder of a journalist at the centre of hostage negotiations with the Japanese government.
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. In the video Kenji Goto, 47, was shown kneeling in front of a masked man armed with a knife. The film was titled: A Message To The Japanese Government.
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. Japan and the US said they were checking the authenticity of the film but Japan’s chief cabinet secretary Yoshihide Suga said: “I cannot help feeling strong indignation that an inhuman and despicable act of terrorism like this has been committed again. We resolutely condemn this.”
Isis had threatened to kill Mr al-Kasasbeh "immediately" if al-Rishawi was not delivered to the Syrian border with Turkey by sundown. Unlike past murders, however, the reported killing followed negotiations with Isis aimed at freeing Mr Goto, and the release of Jordanian pilot Muadh al-Kasasbeh.
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. Sajida Mubarak Atrous al-Rishawi in her apparant confession on Jordanian television in 2005  
Isis had originally put up a ransom of $200 million (£130m) for the lives of Mr Goto and Mr Yukawa, before changing its demands. Mr Goto, an experienced freelance reporter who went to Syria in October, had previously been forced to hold up a picture which appeared to show the aftermath of the beheading of another Japanese hostage, private security consultant Haruna Yukawa.
The group had initially asked for a $200 million ransom for the release of the two Japanese men.
After Isis reported that Mr Yukawa had been killed, however, the demands changed with a call for Jordan to release Sajida al-Rishawi, who has been held since 2005 in relation to bomb attacks on hotels in Amman.
Jordan has itself been threatened with the murder of Mr Kasasbeh, captured when his plane crashed in Syria on Christmas Eve. In response, it has demanded proof he is still alive.
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)
Isis demanded Rishawi was brought to the Turkish border by last Thursday evening or Mr Kasasbeh would be killed. But no exchange occurred and late on Friday, Japan’s deputy foreign minister Yasuhide Nakayama warned negotiations were “in a state of deadlock”.
After Isis’s ransom demands, his family publicly called for Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to negotiate.
In the most recent video, the Isis figure spoke with a British-sounding accent. Mr Goto did not speak in the one-minute long film.
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.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.""(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". Three Americans and two Britons have been killed in similar circumstances, although without public demands for ransoms of money or prisoner exchanges.
Sajida Mubarak Atrous al-Rishawi in her apparant confession on Jordanian television in 2005   US journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff were beheaded, before British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning.
No mention was made in the footage, titled A Message To The Government of Japan, about the fate of Jordanian pilot Muath al-Kaseasbeh. Abdul-Rahman Kassig, formerly known as Peter Kassig, an American aid worker, was also killed.
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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