Paul Marshall Johnson, Jr.

Paul Marshall Johnson, Jr. (May 8, 1955 - c. June 18, 2004) was an American helicopter engineer who lived in Saudi Arabia. He was a native of Stafford Township and Eagleswood Township, both of New Jersey. In 2004, he was taken hostage by terrorists and murdered on video tape.

Johnson, who worked for Lockheed Martin on upgrading Saudi AH-64A Apache attack helicopters, was kidnapped and taken hostage by a terrorist group claiming to be part of Al-Qaida. The group, headed by Abdel Aziz al-Muqrin, posted a video of Johnson on an Islamist website on June 15, 2004. Johnson was blindfolded, and a man armed with an AK-47 could be seen next to him. The video is about two minutes long. Johnson made some statements similar to the ones made by Nick Berg before Berg was killed (not long before Johnson was taken hostage). After making the statements, the next shot is the beheading already in progress. He is lying on a bed with about three men holding him down as one militant severs his head. Unlike the Berg and Eugene Armstrong videos, there is no screaming. The video was also similar to that of Daniel Pearl, who was killed in Pakistan in 2002, and Kim Sun-il, a South Korean who was killed in Iraq during the same month not long after Johnson was killed in Saudi Arabia.

The video was released on the same day that Crown Prince Abdullah promised to step up security and investigations against militant Islamic groups in Saudi Arabia.

Johnson was described by his son, Paul Johnson III, as a lover of Saudi Arabian culture who often sent verses of the Qur'an to his daughter. Immediately after the video was released, American and Saudi Arabian authorities began to deal with the hostage situation. Both the United States and Saudi Arabia asserted that they would not comply with the kidnappers' demands. Those demands included, but were not limited to, releasing all terrorists being held in Saudi custody.

At 17h30 UTC on June 18, Al-Arabiya and CNN reported that Johnson had been beheaded. This report is based on three photographs of the murder posted on the Internet. Saudi officials initially claimed to have discovered Johnson's body near Riyadh later that day, but on June 19 those claims were withdrawn. The Saudi government withheld official proclamation of Johnson's death until the body was found.

HostingAnime, the company which hosts images and video of his murder, have defended showing his beheading.

On July 21 2004, Saudi security officials found Johnson's head in a refrigerator in a villa in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

ee also

* 2003 invasion of Iraq
* Human rights situation in post-Saddam Iraq
* Decapitation
** Daniel Pearl
** Nick Berg
** Kim Sun-il
** Eugene Armstrong
** Jack Hensley
** Kenneth Bigley
** Shosei Koda
** Fabrizio Quattrocchi

Persondata
NAME=Johnson, Paul Marshall, Jr.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=
SHORT DESCRIPTION=American terrorist victim
DATE OF BIRTH=May 8, 1955
PLACE OF BIRTH=
DATE OF DEATH=circa June 18, 2004
PLACE OF DEATH=Saudi Arabia