Minister says man now in Turkey is probably Jumpei Yasuda, missing since 2015
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| Jumpei Yasuda in Baghdad |
A Japanese freelance journalist who went missing three years ago in Syria is believed to have been released by his captors, Japan’s government has said.
The chief cabinet secretary, Yoshihide Suga, said Japan had been informed by Qatar that a man believed to be Jumpei Yasuda had been freed and was now in Turkey.
Suga said Qatar’s government told Japanese officials that the man was being protected by Turkish authorities and was being identified, and that he was probably Yasuda.
Yasuda started reporting on the Middle East in early 2000s. He was taken hostage in Iraq in 2004 with three other Japanese and was later freed after Islamic clerics negotiated his release.
In 2015 he went to Syria to report on the death of his journalist friend Kenji Goto, who was taken hostage and killed by Islamic State. Contact was lost with Yasuda after he sent a message to another Japanese freelancer on 23 June 2015. In his last tweet two days earlier, Yasuda said his reporting was often obstructed and that he would stop tweeting his whereabouts and activities.
Several videos showing a man believed to be Yasuda have been released in the past year.
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