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TOKYO (Reuters) – A man believed to be a Japanese freelance journalist who was captured three years ago in Syria, a Japanese government spokesman said on Tuesday.
"We received information from Qatar that Mr. Jumpei Yasuda had been released," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters. "We were informed that he is an immigration facility in Antakya (in Turkey)."
Suga said the government was making checks to confirm that the man was in fact Yasuda. But he said that it was highly likely that Yasuda's wife had been notified.
Yasuda, 44, had been captured by an al Qaeda affiliate after entering Syria from Turkey in 2015.
Since then, he has appeared in online videos looking up unkempt with graying hair.
(Reporting by Kiyoshi Takenaka and Nobuhiro Kubo Editing John Stonestreet and Helen Popper)
