Japan’s government says it has received information that a man believed to be a Japanese freelance journalist Yasuda captured three years ago in war-torn Syria has been freed and is now in Turkey.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a hastily arranged news conference late on Tuesday that Japan “received information from Qatar that Mr Jumpei Yasuda had been released”.
Yasuda was last heard from in Syria in 2015.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Wednesday he was “relieved” to hear of the release, but that the government still needed to confirm the man’s identity.
Aljazeera reported, Abe thanked Qatar and Turkey for their cooperation in freeing the hostage.
“I’m relieved to hear the information,” Abe said. “We want to confirm whether the man is Mr Jumpei Yasuda as soon as possible.”
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Suga said earlier the government was making checks to confirm the released man was Yasuda. But it was highly likely that was the case, he said, adding that the journalist’s his wife had been notified.
Yasuda started reporting on the Middle East in the early 2000s.
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