American Hostage Appeals to Obama in Al-Qaida Video
The 70-year-old tells the president that "if you don't accept the demands, then I die."
| Posted Monday, May 7, 2012, at 10:22 AM
Photograph by Arif Ali/AFP/Getty Images.
Al-Qaida has released a video of an elderly American hostage pleading for President Obama to give in to the terrorist group's demands in order to save his life.
"My life is in your hands, Mr. President," 70-year-old Warren Weinstein says in the undated video, which was published on a militant message board Sunday night according to the Associated Press. "If you accept the demands, I live; if you don't accept the demands, then I die."
Weinstein had been working as the country director in Pakistan for J.E. Austin Associates, an American firm that advises a variety of Pakistani businesses and government groups including USAID, when he was kidnapped last August from his home in Lahore, the Telegraph explains. His abduction came only two days before he was set to move back to the United States.
Al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri said last December that Weinstein would be released if the United States released all al-Qaida and Taliban suspects around the world, and stopped its airstrikes in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen.
Weinstein consoles his wife in the video, saying "I'm fine, I'm well, I'm getting all my medications, I'm being taken care of."
