King Abdullah of Jordan (Photo: Reuters)
State television said Jordanian pilot Maaz al-Kassasbeh whom the Islamic State group claimed to have burnt alive in a video posted online Tuesday was already killed a month ago.
It said he was killed on January 3, before the jihadists offered to spare his life and free a Japanese journalist in return for the release of an Iraqi would-be suicide bomber on death row in Jordan.
Amman insisted on proof that the pilot, captured on December 24 after his F-16 jet crashed while on a mission over northern Syria, was alive before any exchange.
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