Japanese aid worker murdered in Afghanistan

Kazuya Ito went to Afghanistan to help teach farming techniques to the locals. He was kidnapped while carrying out his daily inspection of irrigation ditches, and there were initial reports that he had been freed soon afterwords. However, those reports proved to be false, and a day later it was revealed that he had actually been brutally murdered:

The Yomiuri had the following information from the head of the NGO Ito worked for:

Ito’s body was found in a mountainous area about 40 kilometers north-northeast of Jalalabad. “Maybe the kidnappers, after being c ornered by villagers, thought it would be difficult to escape and killed Ito, probably by shooting him several times,” Nakamura said. Asked what might have been the kidnappers’ motive, Nakamura said: “Our activities have never created animosity among the local people, and there was no trouble. I don’t think it was politically motivated either. It was probably just a simple robbery.” Nakamura also said that judging from the way the abduction was carried out, it w as probably a poorly thought out action by people that are not trained militants, such as Taliban. Nakamura said the security situation in Afghanistan had deteriorated since the spring snow thaw in April. He also said he felt anti-Japanese sentiment there w as the strongest it had ever been. “Under these circumstances, we started withdrawing our Japanese members temporarily, but on certain points we were too optimistic about the situation,” Nakamura admitted.

Update: A man arrested for the murder has claimed it was done for political reasons.