French hostage killed by Qaeda
Paris, July 26: French President Nicolas Sarkozy vowed on Monday that Fra-nce would avenge the murder of a 78-year-old aid wo-rker who was kidnapped and killed in the Sahara desert by Al Qaeda’s North African wing. “I condemn this barbarous act, this odious act which has put an end to the life of an innocent man who was there to help the local population,” the French leader said in a terse televised address.
Mr Sarkozy spoke after Al Qaeda in the Islamic Mag-hreb declared it had killed the hostage in revenge after French and Mauritanian soldiers stormed one of the group’s camps in Mali and killed six militants. “Dear compatriots, this crime co-mmitted against Michel Ge-rmaneau will not go unpunished,” Mr Sarkozy said, warning French nationals to avoid the arid region running through Mauritania, Mali, Niger and southern Algeria. “We demand instantly of our countrymen that they abandon absolutely all travel in the Sahel zone,” he said, adding that the same AQIM cell had previously killed a British hostage. “Far from weakening our determination, this death has reinforced it.” In Mali, a local official said Germaneau was beheaded after the raid in the presence of Abdelhamid Abou Zeid, the leader of the AQIM cell that has been blamed for killing the Briton in 2009.
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