The family of Margaret Hassan on Tuesday night accepted that the aid worker taken hostage by Iraqi insurgents a month ago had probably been murdered, after analysis of a video which showed a masked gunman shooting a blindfolded woman in the head.
The video, which emerged a week ago but was kept secret, has been studied by experts, and both British diplomats and relatives of Hassan said they now believed it showed the 59-year-old and that she had been killed.
On Tuesday night her brother, Michael, and her sisters Deirdre, Geraldine and Kathryn Fitzsimons said her murder was “unforgivable”.
“Our hearts are broken,” they said in a statement. “We have kept hoping for as long as we could, but we now have to accept that Margaret has probably gone and at last her suffering has ended.
“Those who are guilty of this atrocious act, and those who support them, have no excuses. Nobody can justify this. Margaret was against sanctions and the war.” Her husband, Tahseen Ali Hassan, said: “If she’s dead I want to know where she is so I can bury her in peace.”
The Arabic television channel al-Jazeera said on Tuesday night that in the video the gunman identified the woman as Hassan. She wore an orange jumpsuit. “It shows a hooded person pointing a pistol at the head of a blindfolded woman before shooting her,” said Jihad Ballout, the channel’s spokesperson. Unlike other videos, there were no flags to identify the militant group.
The station said on Tuesday that it had received the video six days ago and then called in British diplomats to its headquarters in Doha, Qatar, to confirm its authenticity.
It said it would not broadcast the tape. “We don’t show acts of killing,” Ballout said. “We’ve never done it before, outside war.”
The family was told about the developments on Monday.
A spokesperson for Tony Blair said on Tuesday: “The prime minister sends his sympathy to the family of Margaret Hassan and shares their abhorrence at the cruel treatment of someone who devoted so many years of her life to helping the people of Iraq.”
It is not clear who kidnapped Hassan. No claim of responsibility has yet been made.
A series of videos has been released, showing her looking exhausted and pleading for her life. In one, which was not broadcast, she faints and a bucket of water is apparently thrown over her.
The killing of another western hostage comes amid the United States military assault on the city of Fallujah, a bastion for the insurgency that has gripped Iraq since last year’s invasion.
A body found in Fallujah at the beginning of the week, which US marines identified as a western woman, was not Hassan.
More than 150 foreigners have been kidnapped in recent months as the insurgency became more violent; up to 40 hostages have been killed.
The British contractor Ken Bigley was beheaded about 10 days before Hassan was seized.
He and two American colleagues were killed by the Tawhid and Jihad militant group, now known as al-Qaeda in Iraq and perhaps the most extreme in the country, which was thought to have been based in Fallujah.
Hassan’s captors had threatened to turn her over to the group but three days later al-Qaeda in Iraq called for her release.
Hassan was born in Dublin and held British, Irish and Iraqi citizenship. She married an Iraqi and lived in Baghdad for 30 years. For the past 10 years she had run Care International’s operations in the country and was involved in important work in sanitation and medical aid.
The Irish prime minister, Bertie Ahern, said he could not “begin to imagine” the anxiety and distress of her family. “Those responsible for abducting Margaret stand condemned by everyone throughout the entire international community,” he said.
At around 7.30am on October 19 she was seized as she left home and drove to the Care International office in Khadra, in western Baghdad.
Two cars blocked her from in front and behind, then gunmen forced their way into her car and drove her away.
A video was broadcast within hours on al-Jazeera showing her looking tired and anxious, with her hands tied behind her back.
A crowd of 200 Iraqis protested at her kidnap at a demonstration outside Care’s office. Care has now suspended operations in Iraq. The agency said from Amman in Jordan that it was “shocked and appalled” by the killing.
“Mrs Hassan was an extraordinary woman who dedicated her life to the poor and disadvantaged in Iraq, particularly the children. The whole of Care is in mourning.”
Few of the remaining westerners in Baghdad, apart from foreign journalists and some contractors, still live outside the heavily fortified green zone which is the base for the US and British embassies and the Iraqi government. Even the green zone is mortared or hit by rockets most nights. – Guardian Unlimited Â