Foreign Office appeals for UK hostage’s life
The Foreign Office has launched a new appeal for the release of a British engineer who is being held hostage in Iraq.
Ken Bigley was seized from his home in Baghdad at the weekend and has been threatened with beheading.
Last night a Foreign Office official, speaking in Arabic on Arab television, sought to stress that the British are not holding any women in Iraq and set up a 24 hour hotline for information that could lead to his release.
The Government as a whole is releasing few details about any efforts behind the scenes to ensure Mr Bigley’s release, but the Prime Ministers’ Official Spokesman said yesterday that they continue to monitor the situation very closely.
Today, both the Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and the Prime Minister himself have spoken on the phone to Mr Bigley’s family, according to the BBC.
Any negotiation is extremely unlikely both the coalition’s and Interim Iraqi Government’s position is that there will be no negotiation with terrorists.
Fears for Mr Bigley’s life have grown after the Americans confirmed they have recovered the body of Eugene Armstrong, one of two American contractors kidnapped along with Mr Bigley.
A videotape has since been released on an Islamist website purporting to show his beheading.
His kidnappers, a group of radical militants linked to suspected al-Qaida operative, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, have demanded the release of all women being held by the coalition.
The militants behind the brutal killing warned that Mr Bigley and American Jack Hensley would face a similar fate if their demands were not met within 24 hours.
