By Haaretz Staff and News Agencies
Last update - 02:29 05/07/2007
Haaretz
Damascus-based Hamas political leader Khaled Meshal said Wednesday the freeing of the British Broadcasting Corporation journalist showed that his movement had brought order to the Gaza Strip by seizing power in the territory last month.
BBC reporter Alan Johnston, freed early Wednesday after being in captivity in the Gaza Strip since March 12, told a Jerusalem press conference later in the day that Hamas is to thank for securing his release.
"We have been able to close this chapter which has harmed the image of our people greatly. The efforts by Hamas have produced the freedom of Alan Johnston," Meshal told Reuters by telephone from Syria.-------
Referring to his secular Palestinian rivals Fatah, he said,
"It showed the difference between the era in which a group used to encourage and commit security anarchy and chaos and the current situation in which Hamas is seeking to stabilize security," said Meshal.
"I'm pretty sure that if Hamas hadn't come in and turned the heat on, I'd still be in that room," Johnston said.
"Hamas has a huge law and order agenda," he said.
Although the Islamic militant movement was controversial internationally, he said, it "is better at keeping law and order than many would agree. And God knows Gaza needs law and order."
...Johnston was released before dawn Wednesday in a murky deal between Gaza's Hamas rulers and his kidnappers from the Army of Islam - a group inspired by Al-Qaida and run by one of Gaza's most notorious and heavily armed crime families, the Doghmush clan.
...The Army of Islam was also one of the groups responsible for capturing Israel Defense Forces soldier, Cpl. Gilad Shalit, a year ago. Shalit remains captive in Gaza, but Johnston said he heard no mention of the soldier...
...The Hamas victory made his captors noticeably nervous, he said.
Johnston said his kidnappers weren't violent until the final hours of his captivity, after they struck a deal with Hamas for his release. They burst into his room and told him to get dressed, he said, and one of the men said, "You're going to Britain."
What followed, Johnston told BBC radio, was a terrible, highly charged ride into the center of Gaza as his captors drove through Hamas roadblocks to turn him over."
...After his release, gaunt but smiling, Johnston was immediately surrounded by armed men from Hamas and hustled off to a news conference with Ismail Haniyeh, the deposed prime minister who now heads the Hamas regime in Gaza. A
ccompanied by British diplomats, he then left Gaza and traveled to Jerusalem.
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