Hassan's belongings identified
2005-05-01 21:31
Baghdad - US and Iraqi forces detained three suspects on Sunday in the abduction of a British aid worker believed killed last year and found clothing and documents that apparently belonged to her.
The British Foreign Office announced the arrests in the abduction of Margaret Hassan, the director of Care International in Iraq, saying they were made after an early morning sweep of an insurgent area 30 kilometres south of Baghdad.
An intelligence official with the Iraqi interior ninistry said five Iraqi suspects had been apprehended and confessed to a role in killing Hassan. The conflicting accounts could not immediately be reconciled.
US and Iraqi forces also recovered articles apparently related to Hassan, the British embassy said in Baghdad.
The Iraqi official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said they included a purse, a woman's clothing and Care documents signed by Hassan.
"We believe this is the first evidence that's been found regarding her since her death," said Martin Cronin, the first secretary at the British embassy.
Hassan, 59, who also held Irish and Iraqi citizenship, was abducted in Baghdad on October 19 on her way to work. Her captors later issued videos showing her pleading for British Prime Minister Tony Blair to withdraw troops from Iraq and calling for the release of female Iraqi prisoners.
On November 16, the Arab satellite television station Al-Jazeera said it had received a video showing a hooded militant shooting a blindfolded woman in the head.
British officials said they believed the woman in the video was Hassan and her family said they believed she was dead, but no body was found.
- AP