Bigley family thanks captors

2004-09-29 19:59

London - The family of British hostage Ken Bigley thanked his captors in Iraq for allowing them to see him alive in a video aired on Wednesday and renewed their plea for his release.

"This afternoon, another video of my father was shown on television.

"We want to thank you for this opportunity to see him alive again," Bigley's son Craig said in a statement from the family released by the foreign office.

"We, as a family, feel that the ultimate decision to release him rests with you, the people who are holding him.

"We once again ask you, please show mercy to my father and release him."

Ken Bigley, a 62-year-old engineer, was shown on Al-Jazeera Arabic satellite television pleading for his life, while shackled and weeping inside a cage.

Bigley was seized on September 16 at his Baghdad home along with two US colleagues, who were later executed.

'Not a broken man'

Bigley's younger brother Paul earlier told Britain's domestic Press Association from his home in the Netherlands he was glad to see the hostage was "alive and he's not a broken man".

But he conceded Bigley he had looked "unwell".

In a separate BBC television interview, Paul said he found it "heart-wrenching" to see his brother, who was wearing orange overalls, huddled in a cage and in chains - an image that recalled the treatment meted out by the United States to al-Qaeda and Taliban suspects imprisoned at the US military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Paul also said he was now "100-percent" certain that a message posted on Tuesday on the internet announcing his brother's imminent release was authentic.

A statement posted on Tuesday night on the Arabic-language website Al Qalah.com said Bigley was to be freed imminently, but warned other people would be kidnapped and beheaded if foreign forces failed to withdraw from Iraq.

- AFP