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4TH LD: Man held in Iraq admits slaying Japanese man in 2004: police+(Japan Economic Newswire Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)AMMAN, March 2_(Kyodo) _ (EDS: ADDING DETAILS) A man believed to be a member of a group close to al-Qaida has admitted killing Japanese backpacker Shosei Koda, 24, in 2004, saying Koda was killed because Japan did not comply with a demand to withdraw its troops from Iraq, a senior Baghdad police official said Thursday. Hussein Fahmi, who has been detained by the Iraqi authorities, was also quoted by the official as saying he thought Koda, a private citizen who did not belong to any nongovernmental or media organization, may have come to Iraq as a spy. Hussein said he was asked to kill Koda in return for money from a different group which abducted Koda, according to the official. Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe told a press conference in Tokyo that the government has not heard from Iraq that a suspect involved in the slaying has been arrested. "We are making an inquiry to the Iraqi Interior Ministry about the facts and are waiting for a response," Abe said. He said the case will basically be investigated by the Iraqi authorities and judged based on the Iraqi laws. Koda was abducted in Iraq and a group linked to the al-Qaida network threatened to behead him unless Japan withdrew its troops from Iraq "within 24 hours" in a video posted on a website on Oct. 26, 2004. Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi refused to comply with the demand. Japan has hundreds of Ground Self-Defense Force troops stationed in southern Iraq on a reconstruction mission. A decapitated body later identified as Koda's was found Oct. 30 that year in Baghdad. Hussein, who was being interrogated about abductions or murders of Muslims in Iraq, started to admit killing Koda, saying that he "also killed a Buddhist," the police official said. "I tried to behead him using a knife, but another member took over," he was quoted by the official as saying. Koda, who is thought to have visited Iraq out of curiosity, was the fifth Japanese to be killed in Iraq in the wake of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003. Two diplomats were killed in November 2003 and two freelance journalists in May 2004. |