Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) executed its hostage French national Michel Germaneau on this date in 2010, in the Saharan state of Mauritania.
An engineer who turned 69 years old in captivity, Germaneau was abducted that April while in Niger doing humanitarian aid. AQIM attempted to exchange him for French-held terrorists, including Rachid Ramda, but the militants shot him out of hand when a joint French-Mauritanian raid attempted to free him but stormed the wrong al Qaeda camp.
Germaneau’s body has never been found.
On this day..
- 2003: Allen Wayne Janecka, hit man - 2020
- 1833: Anastasio Aquino, Nonualco rebel - 2019
- 1951: Arno Esch, liberal - 2018
- 1653: Six beheaded and one hanged for the Swiss Peasant War - 2016
- 1722: Marie-Jeanne Roger, "la Grande-Jeanneton" - 2015
- 2008: Christopher Scott Emmett, jocund - 2014
- 1471: Dmitry Isakevich Boretsky, son of Marfa Boretskaya - 2013
- 1735: Patience Boston, converted - 2012
- 1588: Nicholas Garlick, Robert Ludlam, and Richard Simpson - 2011
- 1892: Ruggles brothers lynched - 2010
- 1942: Joan Peiro i Belis, Catalan anarchist - 2009
- 1794: Not Thomas Paine - 2008