Kenneth Bigley, the Briton held by kidnappers in Iraq, appeared in internet video footage on Wednesday night pleading with British Prime Minister Tony Blair to take action which could save his life.
For the most part composed but with desperation in his voice, the 62-year-old addressed the prime minister directly, telling him he was the only person on earth who could save his life.
”I think this is possibly my last chance to speak to somebody who will listen,” he said in the grainy tape, which appeared to show him against a black and white background with Arabic writing on it.
”I need you to be compassionate as you always said you were and help me to live so I can see my wife and son and brothers again.” Several times he raised his hand to his head, rubbing his face in despair.
”I need you to help me now, Mr Blair, because you are the only person on God’s earth who can help me.”
It was not possible to confirm when the video was filmed, but it is assumed to have been produced by the Tawhid and Jihad [Unification and Holy War] group which kidnapped Bigley and two Americans last week. Both the Americans were beheaded in the past three days.
And in another wretched development, a second militant group said on Wednesday night that it had killed two female Italian aid workers abducted in Baghdad earlier this month.
Bigley’s family were on Wednesday night seizing on the video as a sign of hope, a reprieve that permitted grounds for cautious optimism.
But there were few signs on Wednesday night that the harrowing video plea would produce any sort of deal with the British government.
Jack Straw, foreign secretary, said: ”It’s adding torture to the appalling situation which these evil terrorists have placed Mr Bigley in. I’m afraid to say it cannot alter the position of the British government.”
Earlier he said he did not hold out a great deal of hope. ”We continue to do everything we can to secure Kenneth Bigley’s safe release, but it would be idle to pretend there’s a great deal of hope,” he told reporters in New York, where he is attending the United Nations general assembly.
”I would like to express my profound condolences to the families and colleagues and friends of those two Americans who were working in Iraq for the benefit of the Iraqis.”
The spate of kidnappings over the past six months, many of which have ended in grisly killings, have created security mayhem in Iraq, sending foreigners fleeing and scuppering much reconstruction work.
In its second security warning in less than a week, the British embassy said there was a specific threat to kidnap British citizens on Wednesday night in the same Mansour district of Baghdad where Bigley was seized.
The embassy identified two cars, a Mercedes and a BMW, similar to ones used in the kidnapping last week, which it said might be used.
On Wednesday US officials recovered from a Baghdad street the body of Jack Hensley, the second American contractor to die. Militants later released a video apparently showing his execution, a day after similar footage of the beheading of his colleague Eugene Armstrong was broadcast.
Bigley’s captors had demanded that all women prisoners in Iraq be freed as the price for his release.
”I don’t want to die,” Mr Bigley said. ”I don’t deserve it and neither do the women deserve to be prisoners. Please, please release the female prisoners that are held in Iraqi prisons. Please help them.”
He went on: ”Mr Blair, I am nothing to you. It’s just one person in the whole of the United Kingdom, that’s all. With a family like you’ve got a family, with children, like your children, your boys, your wife.
”Please, you can help, I know you can. These people are not asking for the world, they’re asking for their wives and the mothers of their children.
Earlier there were signs that at least one high-profile female prisoner might be released, raising hopes for Bigley’s fate.
A senior Iraqi minister said that a biological scientist, Rihab Rashid Taha, would be freed immediately. But although US military commanders had approved the release of the ”high-value” scientist before the kidnap of Bigley, they insisted she could not be freed on Wednesday, apparently desperate to avoid making any concessions to the militants.
The justice minister, Malik Dohan al-Hassan, promised to release Dr Taha as early as yesterday and said he would consider the case of the second woman, another scientist, Huda Salih Amash.
But on Wednesday US and senior Iraqi officials moved to dash that suggestion.
”We have not been negotiating and we will not negotiate with terrorists on the release of hostages,” said the prime minister, Ayad Allawi.
But The Guardian has learned that Taha was in fact approved for release by US commanders as long ago as last week, before the kidnapping.
The case came up with dozens of others as part of a two-month review of ”high-value” detainees, nearly all of whom are being held by the US military.
Although US commanders have the final say in such releases, Iraqi officials also reviewed the case at the start of this week and gave their approval.
Qasim Daoud, Iraq’s national security adviser, confirmed it had been agreed to release Taha and at least two other detainees but insisted she would not be freed quickly.
There were still ”security procedures” to be completed before she could go home. ”Iraqi judges decided to release them because they didn’t have any evidence,” he said. ”The judges decided on a conditional release. It will not happen today, tomorrow or the day after tomorrow.”
He insisted his government would not negotiate over the release. ”We have sympathy for the British hostage and his family and the British people but I am afraid we have to stand firmly and reject any negotiations with the terrorists,” he said.
The confusion highlights splits within the new Iraqi cabinet and underlines how much influence US authorities still have in the running of Iraq’s ”sovereign” government.
It also emerged on Wednesday that the spiritual mentor of the militant group behind the kidnap, Sheikh Abu Anas al-Shami, was killed in Baghdad last week when his car was destroyed in a US air strike. Shami called himself grand mufti, or spiritual guide, of Tawhid and Jihad group.
Under pressure from Bigley’s family, the British Foreign Office denied the government was not doing enough and said the Baghdad embassy was working hard to try to secure the businessman’s release.
A Foreign Office spokesperson also denied that the government was negotiating a deal to meet the terrorists’ demand, and described the proposed release of the two scientists as ”a hell of coincidence”.
On Wednesday night Bigley’s son Craig (33) pleaded directly with the kidnappers in a statement on behalf of his family: ”Be merciful, as we know you can be. Release Ken back to his wife and family. We ask you as a family to be all merciful.”
”Thank you for letting Ken make his appeal. All of the family are very grateful to you for his message.
”They wish you to say to Ken that they love him dearly and are waiting for him to come home to them.” – Guardian Unlimited Â