A German sailor who had survived two months as a hostage of Somali pirates nearly a decade ago was beheaded in the Philippines by Islamic terrorists, a short video released Monday showed, after a deadline to pay the man’s ransom passed.
(FOX)- Jurgen Gustav Kantner’s beheading was the first murder of a hostage by the terror group Abu Sayyaf since two Canadians were killed in June. Officials said they had sketchy information Kantner was killed because he was sick, Reuters reported.
The brief video circulated Monday by the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadi websites, showed Kantner sitting in a grassy clearing and saying “Now he kill me” shortly before a masked militant beheaded him with a curved knife.
A few gunmen muttered “Allahu Akbar” in the video that lasted 1 minute and 43 seconds.
In Germany, Foreign Ministry spokesman Martin Schaefer said German experts were evaluating the video to determine whether it was authentic, but that if it is, it’s “deeply shocking.”
“It makes you question what can lead people to commit such a barbaric crime, but, at the moment, I’m not in a position to say whether the video’s authentic,” he said.
(Photo Credit: SITE Intel Group via AP)