RIYADH, 16 June 2004 — An Islamist website yesterday carried a statement purportedly from Al-Qaeda threatening to execute American hostage Paul M. Johnson if its supporters held in the Kingdom are not released within 72 hours.
“If the Saudi government wants Paul Marshall Johnson to be released, it must release the mujahedeen held in the prisons in Hair, Al-Ruwais and Allecha within 72 hours... Otherwise, we will execute him to avenge our Muslim brothers whose blood has been spilled in several parts” of the world, the statement said.
The statement, whose authenticity could not be confirmed, was signed “Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula”.
Johnson, a 49-year-old aeronautics engineer working for top US defense contractor Lockheed Martin, has been missing since Saturday, the same day another American was killed in Riyadh.
Johnson’s wife, Thanom, says she will not leave the Kingdom until she finds out what happened to her husband. Thanom, a Thai from the capital Bangkok called Num by her friends, made the statement to a senior diplomat at the Thai Embassy here.
When contacted by Arab News yesterday, Thanom sounded frail. “I am not in a mood to talk in this state of mind,” she said.
“Num is not prepared to talk to any stranger at this moment since she has still not recovered from the shock from her husband’s sudden disappearance,” a first secretary at the Embassy of Thailand, Sawai Pidmuang, said.
Thanom, 31, had decided to return to her country for good only a couple of weeks before the kidnapping of her husband.
