SA man held in Mali appeals for release

TWO hostages – one a South African – kidnapped by alQaeda militants in north Mali more than three years ago asked their governments to help secure their release in a rare video.

South African Stephen Malcolm McGowan and Johan Gustafsson, of Sweden, were abducted in Timbuktu in November 2011, weeks before secular and Islamist rebels took over Mali’s north.

A German man with them was shot dead in the capture.

The film appears to have been shot in early April, according to McGowan’s family, around the time that a Dutch hostage kidnapped with the pair was rescued in a raid by French special forces.

In the video, McGowan and Gustafsson ask for help from their governments. Neither hostage showed any obvious signs of ill health.

The video could not be independently verified, although it bore the stamp of al-Andalus, which claims to be the media arm of al-Qaeda in north Africa (AQMI).

Its release was announced by Mauritania’s Sahara Medias late on Monday and posted on Youtube. The film is not dated, but McGowan is shown wishing his mother a happy birthday “for two weeks ago” and his wife a happy wedding anniversary “for last week”.

“His mother’s birthday is on March 20 and his wedding anniversary on March 31.

“This would put the video around April 6,” the South African’s father, Malcolm McGowan, said in Johannesburg.

The opening sequence shows a group of armed men in the desert and is narrated by a masked man speaking English with a British accent.

The film cuts to the bearded hostages who then ask their governments for help as their balaclava-clad captors look on. – Reuters and AFP