Foreign Office investigating Bigley execution claims
The Foreign Office is investigating reports that the British engineer Ken Bigley has been killed by his captors.
This afternoon the Arabic television station Abu Dhabi Television announced that they had been told that Mr Bigley had been beheaded by his captors.
A video purporting to show the be-heading was due to be aired at 15:00 BST, though the station has not yet aired any footage.
The Foreign Office are yet to release any official statement, beyond saying that they are making all attempts to verify or disprove the reports and are in close contact with the Bigley family.
A number of correspondents are believed to have already seen the footage, with one Reuters journalist confirming that it appears to show Mr Bigley’s death.
It is claimed that Mr Bigley makes a brief statement in front of six masked militants before having his head cut off.
The construction engineer from Liverpool was abducted from his Baghdad home on September 16th along with two American engineers, both of whom have since been beheaded.
Mr Bigley was originally held by a group under the control of the Jordanian militant, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who had called for the release of women being held in Iraqi prisons.
However, reports last week suggested that he might have been handed over to another group seeking a ransom for his release.
Al-Zarqawi has been linked to Al-Qaeda and has a $25 million bounty on his head.
Mr Bigley’s capture has seen an unprecedented coalition of religious leaders and politicians appeal for his release. These have ranged from Muslim and Christian leaders both in the UK and the Middle East, as well as senior western politicians and the Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi.
