Japanese hostage's father says mind 'totally blank'

A three-minute video was released on the weekend showing a still image of another Japanese hostage Kenji Goto holding a photograph of a decapitated body said to be Yukawa.

TOKYO // The distraught father of a Japanese hostage believed executed by his ISIL told on Sunday of how his mind went “totally blank” when he heard the news of his son’s death.

“I thought ‘Ah, this has finally happened’ and was filled with regret,” Shoichi Yukawa said hours after a video appeared online claiming that self-styled military contractor Haruna Yukawa had been executed.

“I went totally blank ... I had no words to say,” his father, 74, said.

The announcement of the apparent death of the 42-year-old came days after the ISIL militant group published a video in which it threatened to kill him and freelance journalist Kenji Goto unless Japan paid a US$200 million (Dh734m) ransom within 72 hours. That deadline passed on Friday.

Late Saturday, a three-minute video was released showing a still image of Mr Goto holding a photograph of a decapitated body said to be Yukawa.

Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe said Sunday that analysis showed the video was “highly likely” to be credible and condemned the murder as “outrageous and unforgivable”, demanding the immediate release of Mr Goto.

In the accompanying audio recording a man claiming to be Mr Goto blames Mr Abe for Yukawa’s killing.

He is heard pleading in English for his life and seeking the release of Sajida Al Rishawi – an Iraqi woman on death row in a Jordanian prison for her part in the 2005 attacks on three hotels in Amman, where her husband acted as a suicide bomber.

ISIL’s change in tactics shifts attention to Jordan, which together with the UAE is part of the US-led military coalition against the terrorist group in Syria.

Last year, Jordan returned a Libyan militant in exchange for the Jordanian ambassador to Libya, who had been taken hostage. The kingdom may now be looking for ways to secure the return of one of its pilots captured by ISIL after his plane crashed in Syria.

Shoichi Yukawa on Sunday repeatedly apologised to Mr Goto, who was understood to have travelled to Syria to try to free his son.

“I feel it very painful that Mr Goto worried about Haruna, went there and risked his own life and then was kidnapped and threatened this way,” he said.

“If I could see him again, I would hug him with all my strength.”* Agence France-Presse, with additional reporting from Bloomberg