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Website 'beheading' surfaces
13/09/2004 17:52 - (SA)
Cairo - A videotape apparently showing the beheading of a Turkish driver kidnapped last month in Iraq surfaced on Monday on the website of an al-Qaeda-linked militant group.
On the video, purportedly a production of Tawhid and Jihad - the group believed led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi - the victim identifies himself as Durmus Kumdereli. Speaking in Turkish, he says he was transporting goods to an American military base in Mosul. Arabic subtitles accompanied his words.
Afterward, a black screen reading "The execution" appears, followed by warnings from masked, armed militants to foreign drivers and grisly footage of the beheading.
The authenticity of the tape, which was digitally dated August 17, could not be verified. It appeared on a website known for carrying Tawhid and Jihad statements that had been inaccessible in recent days before resurfacing on Monday at a new address.
Kumdereli was abducted on August 14 outside Mosul after delivering water to a US base in Baghdad. Another Turkish driver, Mustafa Koksal, was taken hostage with him, but four days later, the Turkish government said he had been rescued.
There was no word publicly after that about Kumdereli's fate.
The man who identified himself as Kumdereli, reading from a piece of paper, was standing next to another hostage. The militants identified the second man only as another driver whom they decided to release because he had been abducted before a warning was issued. It was not clear who the man was or what warning they were talking about.
According to the Arabic subtitles, Kumdereli advised Turkish drivers not to haul supplies to Iraq. He also called on Turkish companies and the Turkish government to consider the interests of Turks and the Iraqi people and stop supporting the occupation.
Three militants appear in the video under a black banner of the Tawhid and Jihad; two were carrying guns and the third read from a statement.
"We have forewarned. ...We will slaughter this driver and release the other," the man read. "Let it be known from today, any drivers with us will see nothing but slaughtering, whether Arabs or non-Arabs."
- AP
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