Paul Marshall Johnson Jr. (May 8, 1955 – c. June 18, 2004) was an American helicopter engineer who lived in Saudi Arabia.

[2] On June 12, 2004, Johnson, who worked for Lockheed Martin on upgrading Saudi AH-64A Apache attack helicopters,[3] was stopped at a fake police checkpoint near Riyadh and then abducted.

[5] The group, headed by Abdel Aziz al-Muqrin, posted a video of a blindfolded Johnson on an Islamist website on June 15, 2004 and threatened to kill him unless all al-Qaeda prisoners were released from Saudi jails within 72 hours.

[6] Immediately after the video was released, American and Saudi Arabian authorities began to deal with the hostage situation.

The video was released on the same day that Crown Prince Abdullah promised to step up security and investigations against militant Islamic groups in Saudi Arabia.

One of Johnson's Saudi colleagues, Abdullah Al-Momin, published a petition message to the kidnappers through Al-Arabiya TV.