From the desk of Maximillien de Lafayette, Overseas Bureau Chief and Senior Foreign Correspondent   Militant Muslims 'behead US hostage'

Mr Johnson's wife pleaded for his release on Arabic TV Al-Qaeda militants  have beheaded an American engineer they have been holding hostage in Saudi Arabia since last week. Arabic television network al-Arabiya said Paul Johnson had been executed, while an Islamist website showed photographs of the apparent beheading. Al-Qaeda had given the Saudi government a Friday deadline to free jailed militants, or it would kill Mr Johnson. Mr Johnson, 49, was seized in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, last Saturday.

 

SO LONG MR PRESIDENT!

The body of ex-US leader Ronald Reagan has arrived at his presidential library in California to lie in state as five days of solemn events start.

His widow Nancy looked on as an honour guard took the flag-draped coffin inside while a military band played. The public will be allowed to pay their respects at the closed casket before it is taken on to Washington. Reagan died in Los Angeles on Saturday at the age of 93, after a 10-year battle with Alzheimer's disease.

Photo: John and Nellie Reagan with their sons, Neil and Ronald.

Poignant tribute: Once the coffin had been placed on a plinth in the lobby of the presidential library, there was a brief prayer ceremony attended by Reagan's widow Nancy and their tearful children. Earlier, when the former leader's body was carried from the small Santa Monica mortuary where it had lain there was applause from gathered onlookers and salutes from attending police officers. There was applause too for Mrs Reagan, who looked serene, leaning on the arm of a US soldier as she walked. It was her first public appearance since her husband's death at the weekend. Flanked by her children, Mrs Reagan had earlier passed through the gardens at the mortuary, examining the floral tributes and goodwill messages which had accumulated there .Reagan's body will lie in state at the presidential library until Tuesday evening, then it will be flown to Washington to lie in state in the US Capitol. The coffin will be carried on a gun carriage to the US Capitol. Reagan will be the first president to lie in state since Lyndon B Johnson in 1973. The only other president to die in the interim was Richard Nixon, who left office disgraced by the Watergate scandal.

Photo: Secret service personnel escort the hearse as it drives out of the grounds.

Worldwide sympathy: The mourning period will culminate in a full state funeral at the National Cathedral on Friday, which many world leaders are expected to attend. Reagan's body will then be flown back to California for a private sunset burial at the presidential library. As the detailed plans were announced, the Reagan family issued a statement, saying they were "deeply touched by the outpouring of sympathy from across the country and around the world". Tributes have continued to pour in for the former president. Ex-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said Reagan was a "great president" who was "instrumental in bringing about the end of the Cold War". French President Jacques Chirac called him a "great statesman". "He made you feel safe and secure regardless of whether you voted for him or not," one man, John Circenis told Reuters news agency. At Reagan's boyhood home in Dixon, Illinois, mourners left flowers, flags and packets of jelly beans at the foot of a life-sized statue of Reagan.

 

 

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