Freelance journalist Jumpei Yasuda apologized Friday for involving the Japanese government in efforts to rescue him from Syria where he spent years in captivity, but remained adamant about the importance of providing news coverage from conflict zones.

"I'm sorry for involving the Japanese government in the case," Yasuda 44, said at his first press conference since returning to Japan last week, with controversy still swirling about his decision to travel to a war-ravaged country despite the Japanese government warning against it.

Speaking in front of hundreds of reporters at the Japan National Press Club in Tokyo, Yasuda said he was captured in Syria shortly after he crossed the border with Turkey on foot in June 2015.

He said he headed to Syria because he "wanted to know more about the Islamic State (militant group), whether Islamic local communities can be understood by outsiders and whether we can understand each other."

During the press conference that lasted more than two and a half hours, overrunning his original schedule of an hour, he recounted details of his ordeal, including the violence he suffered at the hands of the militant group that held him. But he said he was never told the affiliation of his captors.

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(Still image from online video in July 2018)

"It is natural that people criticize and scrutinize (what I did)...it was difficult for the Japanese government to rescue me and I'm solely to blame for what happened to me," said Yasuda, wearing a dark suit and with his beard trimmed.

He stressed the importance of journalists who cover wars around the world, saying it is "absolutely necessary to have people witness things happening."

As for whether he will continue such coverage, Yasuda, who was formerly a local newspaper reporter but quit his job to cover the 2003 Iraq war, said, "I'm not sure."

The ordeal was not the first time Yasuda had been detained in the Middle East. He was held in the suburbs of the Iraqi capital Baghdad in 2004, but was released three days later.

Journalists and volunteers have often faced criticism after being taken hostage when traveling to work in dangerous countries. In 2004, a terrorist organization kidnapped three Japanese nationals during the Iraq war and demanded Japan withdraw its Self-Defense Forces from Iraq and cease their humanitarian mission.

According to a document distributed at the press conference, Yasuda was held in around 10 locations after entering Syria, including residential homes and a large detention center.

Having first entered Turkey in May 2015, he decided to go to Syria for about 20 days to find out more about the situation in the war-torn country.

When he got to a Turkish town near the border with Syria as advised by a person he hired, two men different from those he had expected to meet led him to Syria, he said.

He felt something was strange but followed them anyway, thinking "That's the way things are there."

Shortly after entering Syria, the two men grabbed his arms and forced him into a pickup truck, he said, adding it was "my silly mistake" to put himself in that situation.

Yasuda said he did not know what his chances were of being freed, but he knew the Japanese government would not pay a ransom even though he was told the militant group was negotiating with Japanese authorities.

"In late July 2015, I was told that (the militant group) would demand money from the Japanese government, and later they said the government answered that they were prepared to pay money...but at the end of December the same year I was told that the Japanese side had cut off communications," said Yasuda.

Since then the militant group members' behavior became abusive toward him, Yasuda said. His captors gave him a notebook and allowed him to keep a diary, he added.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga denied that the Japanese government told the militant group it was prepared to pay a ransom, reiterating that Tokyo paid no money.

Yasuda also said his captors never told him the name of their group.

The Japanese government confirmed on Oct. 24 that Yasuda had been released. He spoke to some media organizations en route to Japan, saying he had faced abusive treatment during his three years and four months of captivity in Syria.

Yasuda has been in hospital for treatment since returning on Oct. 25.