Having murdered one of its Japanese hostages, Haruna Yukawa, the Islamic State issued an audio recording purportedly of the other, Kenji Goto, pleading for his life and making a new demand. Yukawa had been “slaughtered,” said the man claiming to be Goto. He reminded the Japanese that “you were given a deadline” of Friday to give the Islamic State $200 million to save Yukawa’s life.
But now the jihadis had changed their demand. “They no longer want money,” said the voice. “You bring them their sister from the Jordanian regime, and I will be released immediately. Me for her. Don’t let these be my last words you ever hear. Don’t let Abe also kill me.”
“Their sister from the Jordanian regime” was Sajida Mubarak al-Rishawi, whom CNN identified as “an Iraqi woman facing the death penalty in Jordan for her role in a series of bombings in 2005 that killed dozens of people at hotels in the Arab kingdom.”
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe reacted with “strong indignation” to the murder of Yukawa: “Such act of terrorism is outrageous and impermissible, which causes me nothing but strong indignation.” However, he did not say whether he planned to work with the Jordanian government to release Sajida al-Rishawi and hand her over to the Islamic State. According to CNN, “Japanese officials declined to explicitly rule out paying a ransom but said they wouldn’t yield to terrorism.”
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