Caged Bigley pleads with Blair
2004-09-29 15:19
Dubai - The British hostage in Iraq, Kenneth Bigley, appeared huddled in a cage in a videotape broadcast on the satellite news channel Al-Jazeera on Wednesday.
Dressed in orange overalls and crouched, an exhausted-looking and unshaven Bigley is heard saying: "He doesn't care about me," in an apparent reference to British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
"I'm only one ... just one person," he adds.
Bigley's hands and feet were shown tied with a rope that also went around his neck.
The metal cage, in front of a brick wall, did not appear high enough for him to stand up.
According to the Qatar-based station, the 62-year-old hostage called on Blair "to work to free Iraqi prisoners" and said his "kidnappers do not want to kill him".
Bigley is being held by the Tawhid wal Jihad (Unity and Holy War) group of suspected al-Qaeda operative Aby Mussab al-Zarqawi.
His younger brother Paul said earlier on Wednesday that he had received a written translation of a message from the kidnappers suggesting they would spare the 62-year-old engineer's life and free him.
The foreign office, meanwhile, said it was checking various claims of Bigley's imminent release posted on Internet sites but were taking them seriously.
Bigley was seized September 16 from his Baghdad home, along with two US colleagues who were last week beheaded by their captors.