Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Thursday his intelligence officials had information that BBC journalist Alan Johnston, kidnapped more than a month ago in Gaza, was ”still alive”.
”I believe he is still alive. Our intelligence services have confirmed to me that he is alive,” Abbas told reporters during a visit to Stockholm, saying he had received the information ”in the last three days”.
Abbas said he wanted to secure Johnston’s release.
”I want him to be released unharmed and safe without psychological or physical harm,” he stressed.
Johnston (44) was snatched at gunpoint from his car as he drove home from work in Gaza City on March 12 and has become the longest-held Westerner in the increasingly lawless territory.
Last Sunday, an Islamist group claimed it had killed Johnston, one of the few Western reporters to have both lived and worked in the territory.
The Palestinian government has said that so far there was no proof of the death claim by the little-known group, Kataeb al-Jihad al-Tawheed (The Brigades of Holy War and Unity). — AFP
