BBC reporter freed by captors in Gaza - Hamas had pledged to secure his release

BBC reporter freed by captors in Gaza - Hamas had pledged to secure his release
By Joel Greenberg
Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune
Published July 4, 2007
JERUSALEM -- Alan Johnston, the British Broadcasting Corp. reporter held hostage in Gaza since March 12, was released by his captors early Wednesday, ending the longest kidnapping ordeal of a foreign journalist in the Gaza Strip.

Looking gaunt, Johnston, surrounded by members of Hamas's armed wing and security force, was brought to the office of the dismissed Palestinian prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas, and later driven to the Erez Crossing to Israel.

He appeared physically unharmed and at one point smiled to the crush of photographers around him.

"It's just the most fantastic thing to be free. ... I think I'm OK," Johnston said in a telephone interview with BBC television. "It was an extraordinary level of stress and psychological pressure for a long time, and obviously difficult to keep your mind in the right place, a constant battle. I do feel I probably got through it as well as I could have. I probably won't know for a while."

The release was a public relations and political success for Hamas, which took over the Gaza Strip last month, routing forces of the rival Fatah movement and establishing itself as the sole authority in the impoverished territory.

Hamas spokesmen had pledged to secure Johnston's release, a case followed around the world and a test of the Islamic movement's ability to re-establish security in lawless Gaza, which has been plagued with deadly clan and factional rivalries.

"The government is serious about imposing security, stability and order in this part of our homeland," Haniyeh said at a news conference with Johnston in his office.

Since taking over Gaza, Hamas has been anxious to demonstrate that it can restore law and order to the area, posting members of its armed wing and security force on the streets, collecting weapons from rivals who had served in the Fatah-dominated security forces, and carrying out drug raids.

Mahmoud Zahar, a top Hamas leader involved in the contacts leading to Johnston's release, said there were "no conditions at all" attached to freeing him.

Johnston, the only Western correspondent living in Gaza, had been held by the shadowy Army of Islam, a group affiliated with the powerful Doghmush clan and apparently inspired by Al Qaeda. The group had demanded the release of a radical Muslim cleric held in Britain, known as Abu Qutada, who had been convicted in Jordan of bomb plots against foreign tourists.

Since taking over Gaza, Hamas has steadily increased the pressure on Johnston's captors, and on Tuesday its forces surrounded the Doghmush clan's stronghold in Gaza City, posting gunmen on rooftops of surrounding buildings. On Monday, Hamas security men arrested the Army of Islam's spokesman, an apparent attempt to gain a bargaining chip for Johnston's release.

Last week the Army of Islam released a video showing Johnston wearing what he said was an explosives belt and warning against any attempt to release him by force.

"It was an appalling experience, as you can imagine: 16 weeks kidnapped, sometimes occasionally quite terrifiying," Johnston told the BBC. "I didn't know when it was going to end and it was hard to imagine normal life again, many times dreaming of being free and always waking up back in that room."

'Like being buried alive'

At the news conference in Haniyeh's office, Johnston said his captivity was "like being buried alive, really, removed from the world ... in the hands of people who were dangerous and unpredictable."

Johnston said his captors seemed "very comfortable and very secure in their operation" until the Hamas takeover of Gaza, when they became "much more nervous, and I began to feel that perhaps this was coming to an end." He said he was moved from one location to another in the days before his release.

"If it had not been for that serious Hamas pressure, that commitment to tidy up Gaza's many security problems, I might have been in that room for a lot longer," Johnston said.

He added that when negotiations for his release were going badly, he was shackled for 24 hours and his captors "talked about the possibility of killing me in the next few days." He said that on the first night of his captivity he was awakened at 3 a.m., hooded and taken outside.

"You wonder at that point how it's going to end, but as time went on it felt less and less likely that I was going to be killed," he said.

Johnston said he was able to listen to the BBC World Service on a radio while in captivity, and to follow expressions of support for him from Palestinian journalists in Gaza and from colleagues and people around the world.

The BBC, British diplomats and the Palestinian authorities in Gaza had for months conducted quiet negotiations with Johnston's captors for his release. But disputes between Hamas and Fatah over control of security in the territory, which erupted in repeated bouts of factional fighting, hampered efforts to free the reporter.

Haniyeh said the success in freeing Johnston showed that through common effort, Palestinians could "liberate the land of Palestine," and he appealed to Fatah leaders in the West Bank to renew dialogue with Hamas on political cooperation. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of Fatah, has rejected any talks with Hamas leaders, calling them murderers, and has appointed his own government in the West Bank.

The U.S., European Union and Israel have backed Abbas. They classify Hamas, which carried out dozens of suicide bombings in Israel, a terrorist organization and refuse to deal with it.

Israeli soldier still captive

Johnston was the longest-held foreign journalist kidnapped in the Gaza Strip. A reporter and cameraman from Fox News were kidnapped and held last year for nearly two weeks, before being released unharmed.

More than a dozen foreigners have been kidnapped in the Gaza Strip by armed groups in recent years, and have usually been released after a few hours or days in exchange for promises of jobs and the redress of other grievances.

Israeli Cpl. Gilad Shalit, kidnapped in June 2006 by militants from Hamas and allied groups in a cross-border raid, remains in captivity in Gaza. Haniyeh said he hoped the release of Johnston would lead to an "honorable" prisoner exchange with Israel that would free the soldier. ----------

jogreenberg@tribune.com