DUBAI - The captors of three Romanian journalists in Iraq have threatened to kill them if Bucharest fails to announce the withdrawal of its troops within four days, Al-Jazeera television reported Friday airing new footage of the trio.
In the videotape, the journalists appealed to their government to "withdraw the troops from Iraq" and warned that their captors had set an "ultimatum of four days from the broadcast of this video, otherwise they will execute us", Al-Jazeera said.
Prima TV reporter Marie-Jeanne Ion and cameraman Sorin Miscoci were kidnapped on March 28 along with Romania Libera correspondent Eduard Ohanesian.
In the tape aired by the Qatar-based Arab satellite news channel, his kidnappers were named as the "Muadh ibn Jabal Brigade", a previously unknown group.
The black-and-white video showed the hostages seated on the floor with their hands tied as two gunmen stood over them, pointing a revolver and an automatic weapon at the hostages.
Ion, who is seen speaking but without her voice being heard, gave the news of the ultimatum and urged Romanians to hold demonstrations and pressure their government to accept the kidnappers' demands, an Al-Jazeera presentator said.
The journalists were reportedly snatched together with a US-Iraqi businessman, Mohamed Munaf, who had financed their assignment and served as their guide in Baghdad.
Also circled by two gunmen, he was shown on separate footage calling on US President George W. Bush to intervene and secure his release, according to the presentator.
The Romanian government has been in contact with the kidnappers of the journalists, who are alive and not being ill-treated, Romania's President Traian Basescu said on April 13.
Basescu said that despite sometimes daily contact with the kidnappers, negotiations were not taking place.
The contacts have been enough to give "proof that the journalists are alive . . . and that they are not being ill-treated," he said, adding that that "people in Romania and in Iraq" were implicated in the kidnapping.
He also said that Romanian troops in Iraq, who number some 800, would "finish their mission" within the US-led coalition.
The prosecutor's office in Bucharest said earlier this month that a Romanian-Syrian businessman arrested in the Romanian capital was "linked to the alleged kidnappers".
Surveillance of businessman Omar Hayssam has shown "links between him and people suspected of being implicated in the kidnapping", it said in a statement, which linked him to Munaf.
04/22/2005 15:55 GMT