LIVERPOOL, 22 September 2004 — The family of a British hostage threatened with beheading in Iraq begged Prime Minister Tony Blair yesterday to help save his life, as his local church prepared a candlelit vigil to pray for him.
Kenneth Bigley, 62, would become the first British hostage killed by captors in Iraq if the Tawhid and Jihad group of Al-Qaeda ally Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi carried out its threat to kill him.
He is being held with American Jack Hensley. Another American seized with them last Thursday, Eugene Armstrong, was beheaded in a gruesome murder shown on an Internet video on Monday night.
Their captors said in the video they would kill Bigley and Hensley 24 hours later unless US authorities freed women prisoners from jails in Iraq.
The United States says it is holding only two women, scientists suspected of working on Saddam Hussein’s banned weapons programs. There was no indication from kidnappers that they wanted these specific women freed, and President George W. Bush has said he will not give in to the demands.
“I ask Tony Blair personally to consider the amount of bloodshed already suffered,” Bigley’s son Craig said on BBC television. “Only you can save him now ... please meet the demands and release my father — two women for two men.”
Blair phoned the relatives, in the northwestern city of Liverpool, to reassure them the government was doing all it could.
“Allow me to stress this once more, the British forces in Iraq have no Iraqi female prisoners, not even one,” Foreign Office official Dean McLoughlin said in Arabic on Al-Arabiya television, according to a transcript of the interview.
It was McLoughlin’s second appearance on Arabic TV, which might be seen by the hostage-takers, since Sunday. A 24-hour information hotline has been set up in Iraq.
In the family neighborhood in Liverpool, people watched news of Bigley’s plight on televisions in pubs.
A spokesman for the Anglican Bishop of Liverpool James Jones said a vigil would take place at the local church, St Mary’s.
“They’re opening the church from 7 p.m. (1800 GMT) this evening for a couple of hours for people to pray and light candles and to have Mr. Bigley in their thoughts,” he said.
The Bishop of Liverpool and Akbar Ali, a Muslim leader in the city, issued a joint statement.
“In the name of God the Merciful One, we, as Muslim and Christian leaders in Liverpool, appeal to you as believers to have mercy on Kenneth Bigley and Jack Hensley,” it said.
“I’m as devastated as anybody. It really brings the war home,” said Ron Scott, who lives nearby. “We can’t give in,” said the headline of the Liverpool Echo.
The hostage crisis puts fresh pressure on Blair, who has seen his popularity ratings plunge because of the Iraq war. He is preparing this week for the annual conference of his Labor Party, where he will face anger from anti-war left-wingers.
British officials say the government is using all channels possible to secure Bigley’s release, but refuse to give details.
Blair has said little publicly on the captures, in contrast with appeals by President Jacques Chirac for the release of two French journalists held hostage, and with Bush’s statements.
Blair’s failure to make a public appeal angered Bigley’s family. Brother Philip Bigley told Sky television: “We have seen the prime minister spending time on trains that can help a commuter save 14 minutes on a journey to London when he should be devoting his time to saving the life of my brother.
“He is the political head of our country. It is the prime minister who has the power to save Ken’s life.”
