MOSCOW, September 24 (RIA Novosti) - Radical Islamic cleric Abdullah Faisal has called upon the Islamic State jihadist group to free British citizen Alan Henning in a video uploaded on YouTube.
"He is a philanthropist; he is a sympathizer to Muslims. To kill someone like that, an aid worker, is un-Islamic. The Sharia law does not allow you to kill Alan Henning," Faisal says in the footage, released Wednesday.
He finished by begging the IS fighters, who he addressed as "brothers," to set the hostage free "in the name of Allah."
Abdullah Faisal is known for supporting Islamic fundamentalism and the Islamic State group in particular. He has served a four-year prison term in the United Kingdom for soliciting murder and inciting religious hatred.
Alan Henning, a British aid volunteer, was seized by the IS in Syria in 2012. In the footage, showing the execution of another British national David Haines, released earlier in September, the IS militants threatened to kill Henning if UK Prime Minister David Cameron kept supporting the US-led military campaign, countering terrorism in the Middle East.
In September, Washington established a multinational coalition to fight insurgency in the Middle East. Prime Minister Cameron backed the military action with the UK Parliament expecting to be recalled to vote on the country's participation in airstrikes.
