Sunset deadline passes for Jordan to hand over convicted bomber to spare lives of pilot and a Japanese hostage

Jordan has demanded proof from Islamic State (Isis) that its captured pilot is still alive before it goes ahead with a possible exchange for a convicted terrorist.

Isis had given Jordanian authorities until sunset on Thursday (approximately 2.30pm GMT) to hand over the failed suicide bomber Sajida al-Rishawi in return for a second hostage, the Japanese journalist Kenji Goto – a deal that Isis said would keep alive Muath al-Kasasbeh, whose fighter jet was shot down over eastern Syria in December.

The Guardian view on Jordan’s hostage dilemma | Editorial Read more

An urgent meeting of ministers called on Thursday afternoon led to a government statement demanding proof of life before releasing Rishawi, who has been on death row since 2006.

Goto’s wife released a statement on Thursday calling for the jihadist group to free her husband, who travelled to the Isis stronghold of Raqqa last October, reportedly to search for a second Japanese hostage, Haruna Yukawa, who was killed by his captors last week.

“I fear that this is the last chance for my husband, and we now have only a few hours left to secure his release and the life of Lieutenant Muath al-Kasasbeh,” said Rinko Goto.

“I beg the Jordanian and Japanese governments to understand that the fates of both men are in their hands.”

Earlier, the jihadists released an audio message in which Goto said Rishawi should be taken to the Turkish border by sunset Iraqi time on Thursday. Isis warned that Kasasbeh would be killed immediately if Rishawi did not appear by the deadline. Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, said analysis of the message suggested it had been issued by Isis.

The message appeared after the expiry of a previous 24-hour deadline for Rishawi’s release. Isis had threatened to kill both hostages unless Jordan freed Rishawi, who was sentenced to death for her involvement in a 2005 terrorist attack that killed 60 people.

Although Thursday’s message appeared to confirm that Goto was still alive, concern grew in Japan after Jordan and Isis stopped mentioning him as part of a possible prisoner swap. Having initially accepted Isis’s demand to release Rishawi, Jordanian officials backtracked, saying they had been unable to confirm that Kasasbeh was still alive.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Jordanian information minister Nasser Judeh says the government is yet to receive proof of life

The Jordanian foreign minister, Nasser Judeh, tweeted early on Thursday that Jordan had requested assurances that the 26-year-old pilot was safe but had received no response from Isis.

The government spokesman Mohammad al-Momani said Jordan was ready to release Rishawi as long as Kasasbeh was spared, but added that she would be held until the pilot was freed. “It’s not true she has been released,” he told Reuters in the Jordanian capital, Amman. “Her release is tied to freeing our pilot.”

Japan’s foreign minister, Fumio Kishida, said there had been no major developments in efforts to secure Goto’s release. “There are lots of pieces of information swirling around, so we need to scrutinise them all very carefully,” Kishida told reporters in Tokyo.

Rishawi, 44, was sentenced to death after being convicted for her part in an al-Qaida attack on a string of hotels in Amman in 2005 that killed 60 people. The attack was a seminal moment in the arc of Isis – it led directly to one of its biggest setbacks, the killing of the then head of the Islamic State of Iraq, an earlier incarnation of the terror group that now controls much of eastern Syria and western Iraq.

Rishawi was captured after one of three explosions in central Amman on 9 November 2005, which were ordered by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Her husband, Ali Hussein al-Shamari, detonated his bomb in the Radisson SAS hotel but Rishawi’s bomb was faulty.

Riled Jordanian intelligence officials then launched a concerted effort to find Zarqawi, who was nearing the peak of his powers in Iraq, where a Sunni insurgency he was driving had taken hold. Zarqawi’s hideout was found seven months later after a source cultivated by the Jordanians pinpointed his location. He was killed by a bomb dropped from a US air force jet in June 2006 in the town of Hibhib, 40 miles north of Baghdad.

Rishawi was moved from her prison cell hours after Abe condemned as “despicable” the release of Tuesday’s video purporting to show Goto, accompanied by a warning that he and Kasasbeh had hours to live unless Rishawi was released.

Goto says in the clip: “She [Rishawi] has been a prisoner for a decade and I’ve only been a prisoner for a few months. Her for me, a straight exchange.”

Three days earlier Goto was heard in another audio clip announcing that Yukawa had been beheaded, after Japan refused to pay a ransom of US$200m by the end of a 72-hour deadline.

The proposed prisoner swap with Isis will horrify some governments but it is a more effective strategy than stonewalling the terror group. Isis had previously demanded cash ransoms for all foreign hostages it had seized since late 2012. The decision to instead demand a prisoner swap for Goto is being seen by some close to the organisation as a symbolic attempt to retrieve something from the Amman attack, which is widely considered among senior members to have been a serious mistake.