Croatia PM Fears Worst on ISIS Beheading

Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic on Wednesday afternoon said Croatia could "not confirm with complete certainty that Tomislav Salopek was executed by ISIS" though he suggested it was certainly possible.

"Unfortunately, we have to to break the silence," he said. "We cannot confirm with certainty that this is true, or whether we will be able to confirm [the death] in the coming days. What we have seen is horrific," Milanovic said.

"We will not give up looking [for Salopek] while there is any glimmer of hope left. Again, we cannot confirm it but we fear that for the first time it has happened to a Croatian citizen what so far happened to people from other countries," he said.

Refering to a photograph of a decapitated body said to belong to Salopek, he added: "We urge the media and citizens not to share this image out of respect to Salopek's family."

The Prime Minister spoke after the photograph of what appeared to be Salopek's decapited body was published on Twitter, prompting media reports to suggest he had been executed.

Milanovic said Croatian security agencies will continue to try to confirm the veracity of the photograph.

A deadline ISIS set for 30-year-old Salopek expired on Friday by which date Egyptian authorities had not fulfilled the group's demand to release certain prisoners.

The Croat was taken hostage by ISIS in Cairo on July 22. A video showing him reading out the militant group's demands was published online last Wednesday.

In the video, he said that ISIS would kill him within 48 hours, on Friday at 5.35 pm Central European Time, if its demands were not fulfilled.

Salopek has a wife and two children in Croatia and worked as a topographer at a French company, Compagnie Générale...