Al Jazeera Arabic, the sister channel of Al Jazeera English, has retracted an article from its website which suggested the beheading of two US journalists by the Islamic State group had been staged.
Al Jazeera Arabic’s managing director, Yasser Abu Hilalah, said in a statement on Saturday that the article was misleading.
“In respect to families of the victims and as we share their grief, Al Jazeera Arabic’s website decided to retract an inaccurate article that questioned the legitimacy of James Foley and Steven Sotloff’s beheading videos after a theory surfaced on a number of American social media sites claiming they were produced as a pretext ahead of a possible US invasion of Syria.
"We want to take this as an opportunity to reiterate Al Jazeera’s previous position in condemning the kidnapping of the two journalists and condemning their killing as a heinous crime.
"We would like to also renew our call for the release of all kidnapped journalists throughout the world who were only carrying out their professional duty in seeking truth and providing a fair and comprehensive account of events and issues.
"Al Jazeera had previously issued a statement before the killing of Sotloff, appealing to the kidnappers to release him and aired Sotloff’s mother’s message appealing to the kidnappers to release him.
"We, in Al Jazeera, would like to emphasise our policy of supporting the freedom of journalists and to protect them from any harm anywhere around the world."