TOKYO (REUTERS) - The Japanese government is seeking information after reports a Japanese freelance journalist is being held hostage in Syria and has been threatened with execution, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said on Thursday (Dec 24).

Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said this week that, according to information it had received, an armed group holding journalist Yasuda Jumpei hostage had started a countdown for an unspecified ransom to be paid and had threatened to execute or sell him to another group if their demands were not met.

RSF said in a statement on its website that Yasuda was kidnapped in July by an armed group in an area controlled by the militant Nusra Front, Al-Qaeda's Syria wing, shortly after entering Syria earlier that month.

Suga spoke in response to a question about the RSF statement at a news conference.