Hostage Update

AKIHITO SAITO

From AP:

Japanese Hostage May Be Dead, Company Says

LONDON May 11, 2005 — A Japanese security consultant taken hostage in Iraq may have died from wounds sustained in the ambush by insurgents earlier this week, the company that employed him said Wednesday.

Akihito Saito, 44, was taken hostage after insurgents ambushed the car in which he was traveling west of Baghdad on Sunday, according to the international security firm Hart.

The militant group Ansar al-Sunnah Army has claimed responsibility for the ambush and the abduction, saying on its Web site Monday that it killed four foreign contractors and that a fifth, Saito, was seriously wounded.

Hart said it has not given up hope Saito may be alive. "However an eyewitness report indicates that wounds sustained at the time of the incident may have proved fatal," the company's London office said in a statement on its Web site.

The Japanese government said earlier Wednesday that it believed Saito was still alive.

DOUGLAS WOOD

From the Sydney Morning Herald:

New Wood deadline unconfirmed: Downer
May 12, 2005 - 11:30AM

Australian officials are aware Iraqi insurgents holding Australian Douglas Wood may have extended their deadline but have not been able to confirm it, says Foreign Minister Alexander Downer.

An original deadline set by the kidnappers passed at 5am (AEST) on Tuesday and since then there has been no word on the fate of the 63-year-old engineer, being held by a group calling itself the Shura Council of the Mujahedeen of Iraq.

Australia's mufti, Sheik Taj Aldin Alhilali, told SBS radio in Arabic that he had been negotiating with Mr Wood's kidnappers via the Islamic clergy, Iraqi media and other Iraqi people.

"There's been an extension of that deadline until 12 o'clock midnight (AEST), today," SBS Arabic radio journalist Majida Abboud-Saab, who interviewed the sheik, told AAP.

Mr Downer said that had not yet been confirmed.

"We can't confirm that. Obviously we have heard the suggestion," he told reporters.

"We hope very much that Douglas Wood is still alive and we continue to plead for his release. He is not somebody who is involved in politics.

"He has a caring and loving family who want him back and we think he should be released."

JEFFREY AKE

No word.