Fortune tellers: Bigley alive
2004-09-26 12:03
Bangkok - Relatives of British hostage Kenneth Bigley's Thai wife gathered on Sunday at her home village in northeast Thailand to pray for his release from Iraqi captors, as fortune tellers told the distraught family he was still alive.
Lim Sa-nguandee, the 69-year-old father of Bigley's wife Sombat, described "Ken" as a good man who earned the respect of Sombat's family and friends. Many of them have gathered at the small village of Sorathavorn near the Cambodian border to maintain a vigil and await news from Baghdad.
"I have prayed to Buddha to help him return home safely. I have prayed every day, asking him to help my son Ken return to our family," Lim told AFP in a telephone interview from the village.
"He is a good man. He loves to make merit and help people without discrimination," he added.
Bigley, a 62-year-old engineer, was abducted September 16, along with US colleagues Jack Hensley and Eugene Armstrong, by Tawhid wal Jihad (Unity and Holy War), led by Jordanian-born radical Abu Mussab Zarqawi.
The two Americans have since been executed, and an Islamist website has declared that Bigley too has been murdered, although Britain's foreign office said the website was not credible.
On Thursday Sombat begged her husband's abductors in Iraq for mercy, in an emotional appeal recorded in Bangkok in her native Thai language and broadcast in Britain.
Living 'from moment to moment'
The crisis is eerily reminiscent of another kidnapping of a Westerner with a Thai wife.
American engineer Paul Johnson was snatched by al-Qaeda militants in Saudi Arabia in June, plunging his wife's village of Nong Kung also in northeast Thailand into a pall of despair and disbelief. Johnson was later beheaded.
Sombat's older sister Sunee Pansook said the family is living from moment to moment, and while they have heard of the unconfirmed Internet reports of Bigley's death they hold out hope for his release.
"We don't have any news update but we do still have hope," she said.
"Fortune tellers have told us that he's still alive, and we believe he is still alive. We still have hope but at the same time we know it is a 50-50 chance."
Life in rural Sorathavorn froze the moment residents learned of the capture last week of their adopted son.
"We have been in shock since we heard Ken was captured," a policeman and neighbour of the family said. "We are here to give them support as we cannot let them endure this sadness alone."
Bigley and his wife of seven years had built a new house in the village where they were expecting to return next month after his stint in Iraq.
- AFP