The North Africa branch of Al-Qaeda said on Wednesday it was holding a German engineer, Edgar Fritz Raupach, kidnapped in Kano, Nigeria two months ago.
Al-Qaeda said it wanted to swap him for a jailed Muslim woman in Germany.
The group said in a statement published by a private news agency, ANI, in Mauritania: “We inform you that your compatriot Edgar Fritz Raupach is a prisoner of fighters from AQIM (Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb).”
The group said the woman being held in Germany is Ms Felis Lowitz, who had converted to Islam.
Her new name is Um Seiv Al-Islam-Al-Ansariya.