ISIL claims to have beheaded Croatian hostage in Egypt

Croatia's prime minister Zoran Milanovic (pictured) said he was unable to confirm Tomislav Salopek's death but that he feared the worst. The 31-year-old father-of-two was abducted last month west of Cairo.

Croatia’s prime minister Zoran Milanovic said on Wednesday that he was unable to confirm Salopek’s death but feared the worst. Goran Stanzl/AP Photo

CAIRO // ISIL claimed on Wednesday to have beheaded a Croatian hostage abducted in Egypt, posting a purported picture of the victim’s body on Twitter accounts affiliated with the group.

Tomislav Salopek was abducted last month west of the capital Cairo. ISIL had issued a 48-hour deadline that ended last Friday, threatening to kill him if Muslim female prisoners were not released from Egyptian jails.

Croatia’s prime minister Zoran Milanovic said on Wednesday that he was unable to confirm Salopek’s death but feared the worst.

“At this moment we cannot confirm with 100-per cent certainty that this is true and I don’t know if we will be able to confirm that in the coming days, but what we see does not look good, looks horrible,” Mr Milanovic said.

Salopek’s abduction and purported killing were unprecedented in Egypt, which is battling an ISIL insurgency in the eastern Sinai Peninsula.

The picture alleged to be of Salopek was posted on ISIL-affiliated Twitter accounts with the caption: “Execution of prisoner from Croatia – which has participated in war on Islamic State – after deadline ended.”

Salopek, a 31-year-old father of two, had been working with French geoscience company CGG when abducted from a car roughly 22 kilometres west of Cairo.

The abduction has rattled foreigners working for multinational companies and underscored the extremists’ reach despite a massive military campaign against ISIL.

Egypt had said it was intensifying efforts to locate Salopek after ISIL released a video of the hostage last Wednesday.

In the video, Salopek, kneeling next to a masked militant holding a knife, was forced to read a statement saying that his captors would execute him in 48 hours if Cairo failed to release female prisoners, a key demand of militants in Egypt over the past two years.

Salopek’s abduction had been treated by police as a criminal kidnapping before the video emerged.

Although ISIL’s Egyptian affiliate has killed hundreds of policemen and soldiers, the country had been spared the gruesome kidnappings and executions of foreigners conducted by the extremist group in Iraq and Syria.

However, the group has previously beheaded Bedouin in Sinai who it accused of collaborating with the Egyptian army.

* Agence France-Presse