A new video of kidnapped South African Stephen Malcolm McGowan has been published by Al Jazeera. McGowan was kidnapped along with  Swede Johan Gustafson and Dutch national Sjaak Rijke over nine months ago. Though the video only has Al Jazeera’s voice over, the captives appear in good health.

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has been holding the three men hostage since abducting them in the northern Mali city of Timbuktu on November 25 2011.

Al-Jazeera said in a statement that it conducted an “exclusive interview” with the hostages who gave a detailed account of their abduction in November 2011, and urged their respective governments to step up efforts to free them.

The statement from Al Jazeera said:

The captives urged their countries to engage in swift and effective negotiations with the kidnappers to bring their turmoil to an end.

The statement also said the captives said that “they were taken from their hotel in Timbuktu at gunpoint into an SUV vehicle and transported to unknown whereabouts. After that they were forced into a strenuous 24-hour journey.” According to the statement, the kidnappers have said no  harm will come to the captives. Al Jazeera said the captives told them they have been treated well.

According to Al Jazeera, the hostages were seized by Ansar Dine, an Islamist group affiliated to AQIM, along with a German national who was killed as he resisted his abduction.

In December, AQIM claimed responsibility for the abductions and released pictures of the hostages.

In April it offered to free McGowan if London allows radical cleric Abu Qatada to choose a country for his extradition, the US monitoring service SITE reported at the time.

For more than six years, Britain has been trying to deport Abu Qatada to Jordan, where he was convicted in absentia in 1998 for involvement in attacks.

AQIM is also holding six French citizens kidnapped from Niger and Mali.

[Source: M&G, Al Jazeera]