BBC Gaza reporter says treated well by captors-Web

DUBAI, June 1 (Reuters) Kidnapped BBC Gaza correspondent Alan Johnston said his captors had treated him well in an Internet video issued by them today.

The video, posted on an Islamist Web site, is the first tangible evidence that Johnston, who disappeared on March 12, was alive up to that point after being kidnapped. It was not clear when the video was taped.

''First of all, my captors have treated me very well,'' Johnston said on the video issued by the Army of Islam which last month claimed responsibility for his kidnapping.

''They have fed me well, there has been no violence towards me at all and I'm in good health,'' said Johnston, wearing a red sweater and sitting against a black background.

The group repeated its demand on the video for Britain to free Muslim prisoners, particularly the Islamist cleric Abu Qatada.

In London, a British Foreign Office spokesman said: ''We are urgently trying to check out the reports.'' Abu Qatada, a radical Islamic cleric suspected of close links to al Qaeda, has been described by the British government as a ''significant international terrorist''.

He is one of more than a dozen Arab men whom Britain has been holding under detention or house arrest as threats to national security, while acknowledging that it does not have sufficient evidence to put them on trial.

''In all this, you can see the British government is endlessly working to occupy Muslim lands against the will of the people in those places,'' Johnston said.

Johnston criticised the British military presence alongside the United States in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The tape was interrupted as Johnston started addressing his family members, and a text appeared in which the group said the BBC had refused to take Johnston's message to his family.

The video was posted on an Islamist Web site often used by al Qaeda and other militant groups, and was accompanied by what appeared to be a picture of Johnston's BBC staff card.

REUTERS SBC PM1344