TEHRAN, Oct 30: Kidnappers holding a Japanese student taken hostage in Iran are still holding him outside the Islamic republic in the border zone between Pakistan and Afghanistan, the judiciary said on Tuesday.

“The Japanese who was abducted by an international drug trafficking gang is currently being held in an area between the Afghan and Pakistani borders,” Iranian judiciary spokesman Ali Reza Jamshidi told reporters.

Mr Jamshidi added that although 23-year-old Satoshi Nakamura was being held outside Iran, the Iranian authorities were working for his release and hoping he would be freed soon. He added that Mr Nakamura was healthy.

Mr Nakamura was kidnapped in October in a region of southeast Iran which borders Pakistan. Victims in previous hostage-taking incidents have often been taken over the border there.

Bandits abducted the student as he headed from his hotel for the ancient mud-built citadel of Bam.—AFP