Killed hostage gets peace prize

2005-01-02 10:00

London - British aid worker Margaret Hassan, who was taken hostage in Iraq last year and is believed to have been slain by her abductors, was Saturday awarded Ireland's most prestigious peace prize.

The Tipperary International Peace Prize award, previously won by former presidents Nelson Mandela, Mikhail Gorbachev, and Bill Clinton, will be received by relatives on behalf of Hassan, 59, in April.

"The Peace Convention salutes the extraordinary life of a Dublin-born aid worker," the Tipperary convention said in a written statement.

"She showed extraordinary courage, tenacity and commitment in her concern for those who were living in the most difficult of circumstances," the statement said.

Hassan, head of Care International's Iraq operations, was seized in Baghdad on October 19 while on her way to work.

Al-Jazeera satellite television said on November 16 it had received a video showing the execution of a man shooting a "blind-folded woman, who appears to be Margaret Hassan".

Although her body has never found, British officials say they believe she has been murdered.

Hassan, born in Dublin of British nationality, had lived in Iraq for over 30 years and was married to an Iraqi.

- AFP