78-Year-Old French aid worker beheaded by al-Qaeda
“French hostage Michel Germaneau was beheaded before the eyes” of the head of the radical Al-Qaeda of the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) group that was holding him.
“Yes, it’s true, after the failure of the Franco-Mauritanian raid on Thursday, AQIM executed the French hostage,” said the official from the northeastern Kidal region, where Germaneau was reportedly held.
Michel Germaneau
AQIM has announced that it executed Germaneau, a 78-year-old aid worker, on Saturday, in revenge for a joint raid last Thursday by Mauritanian and French troops, in which six fundamentalists were killed. Germaneau was seized in Niger on April 19.
“He (Germaneau) was still alive during the raid, but hidden in a mountainous zone in the Kidal region, near the border with Algeria. The place is an impregnable fortress, where the Islamists have laid mines and built shelters to protect themselves from any air attack,” the official told the news agency.
A local leader from northern Mali, who is involved in all negotiations for the release of hostages in the region and who also asked not to be named, said: “It’s certain. To avenge the death of several of their elements, they killed the French hostage. We have just learned this by the usual channels.”
French President Nicolas Sarkozy vowed on Monday that France would avenge the murder of the elderly aid worker. ”I condemn this barbarous act, this odious act which has put an end to the life of an innocent man who was there to help the local population,” the French leader said in a terse televised address. Hindustan Times
July 26, 2010
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