U.S. citizen abducted in Pakistan asks President Obama to negotiate with al Qaeda

A U.S. citizen kidnapped in Pakistan last year has made an emotional plea to President Barack Obama to negotiate with al Qaeda in order to spare his life, according to a video released on several Islamist websites on Sunday. “My life is in your hands, Mr. President,” Warren Weinstein said in the video. “If you accept the demands, I live. If you don’t accept the demands, then I die.” Weinstein, a 70-year-old development consultant, was abducted in August from his home in the city of Lahore. Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for his capture in December. “It is important that you accept these demands and act quickly and don’t delay,” Weinstein said in the video less than three minutes long.

Leader of the terror network Ayman al-Zawahiri listed eight demands that he said, if met, would result in Weinstein’s release. The demands are in relation to issues in the Middle East, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Somalia. Al Qaeda’s demands include the lifting of the blockade on movement of people and trade between Egypt and Gaza, an end to bombing the United States and its allies in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Gaza, the release of anyone arrested on charges belonging to al Qaeda and the Taliban, the release of all prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and American secret prisons and the closure of Guantanamo and the other prisons, the release of terrorists convicted in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, and the release of the relatives of Osama bin Laden, the founder of al Qaeda who was executed by U.S. Navy Seals last year.