Kidnapped BBC Gaza reporter says he's well in video

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) - Kidnapped BBC Gaza correspondent Alan Johnston said he was in good health and being treated well in a video released on Friday, his first message from captivity since militants seized him 11 weeks ago.

It was the clearest evidence yet that he was alive following his March 12 abduction, although it was not known when the tape was made. The reporter criticised Israel and London's policy towards the Muslim world.

"My captors have treated me very well," he said on the video posted on an Islamist Web site by a group called the Army of Islam, which said last month it had kidnapped him.

"They have fed me well. There has been no violence towards me at all and I'm in good health," said Johnston, wearing a baggy red sweater and sitting before a dark grey background.

The group holding him repeated its demand on the video for Britain to free Muslim prisoners, particularly the Islamist cleric Abu Qatada. Johnston criticised the British military presence alongside the United States in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The Scotsman, who turned 45 in captivity last month, is the only Western correspondent based full-time in the Gaza Strip, where a year-old economic embargo and fighting among militants have worsened living conditions for the 1.4 million people crammed into the territory.

None of several foreigners seized in Gaza in recent years has been harmed. None has been held as long as Johnston, with most freed within days.

Saeb Erekat, a top adviser to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, called the video "proof of life", denounced the kidnappers and urged the government led by the militant group Hamas to act.