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By Atul Aneja
MANAMA, SEPT. 23. Reinforcing a decision taken by the United States, Iraq's interim Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi, has rejected the demand by an Iraqi militant group holding a British citizen captive to release women prisoners in Iraqi jails.
Execution threat
Mr. Allawi's decision has heightened the possibility of Kenneth Bigley facing execution by the Tawhid wal Jihad group. Led by the Jordanian militant Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the Tawhid wal Jihad has already beheaded two Americans, out of the three individuals that it had abducted. Video footage released on Monday showed American Eugene Armstrong being decapitated by a masked man, who the CIA has identified as Mr. Zarqawi. A second American, Jack Hensley, was killed 24 hours later. A video allegedly showing his killing was posted on Wednesday evening after his body was found. In a statement, Mr. Allawi said "there is no question of the Iraqi Government ... changing these decisions in the light of the demands of a terrorist group which has taken three hostages and criminally and barbarically murdered two of them."
`U.S. sabotaged release'
Paul Bigley, the brother of the kidnapped Briton reacted with dismay at Mr. Allawi's statement, blaming Washington of having `sabotaged' the possibility of a safe release. "A judge [in Iraq] has made a legal decision to release three people, one female and two males. The Minister of Justice has endorsed this [and] published this on international news. Now this has been sabotaged," Mr. Bigley told a British radio station.
British hostage's plea
On Wednesday, a poor quality video posted on the internet showed a sobbing Mr. Kenneth Bigley making an emotional appeal to British Prime Minister Tony Blair to save his life: "I need you [Blair] to be compassionate as you always said you were ... I do not want to die." Mr. Bigley was shown wearing an orange jump suit, similar to the clothing issued to the inmates of the U.S. detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. It has become a common practice with the militants to drape their captives in orange clothes before executing them. In a related development, there has been no confirmation that the two Italian women, taken hostage on September 7, have been executed. A group calling itself the Jihad Organisation said on Thursday that it had `slaughtered' the two hostages because the Italian Government had not pulled out its forces from Iraq as it had demanded.
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