Shosei Koda

Japanese Embassy officials in Baghdad sent fingerprints of the body to the Foreign Ministry in Tokyo, and police experts positively identified it, Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura said.

Islamic guerrillas, thought to be led by Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, an Osama bin Laden supporter blamed for a slew of killings and abductions, had threatened Oct. 26 to behead Koda within 48 hours unless Japan pulled its troops out of Iraq. Tokyo immediately refused.

Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi

Koda, a high-school dropout and former house painter from Nogata, Fukuoka Prefecture, left Japan in January for a yearlong trip starting in New Zealand. He had told people he met traveling that he wanted to go to Iraq to see the country.

The Foreign Ministry said Koda entered Iraq on Oct. 21 and was last seen two days later at a Baghdad bus terminal, where he tried to catch a bus back to Jordan.

The Japan Times Weekly: Nov. 6, 2004
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