British hostage in Iraq Ken Bigley has been shown pleading for his life on an Islamist website. Bigley, 62, begged British PM Tony Blair to intervene to save him on the video which was filmed by his captors - Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's Tawhid and Jihad Group.
"I need you to help me now Mr Blair, because you are the only person on God's earth who can help me," he said.
"I think this is possibly my last chance, I don't want to die. I don't deserve and neither do the women deserve to be in prison.
"Please please release the female prisoners that are held in Iraqi prisons. Please help them.
"I need you to help me, Mr Blair because you are the only person now on God's earth that I can speak to.
"Please please help me see my wife who cannot cannot go on without me."
The group has said it will behead Bigley unless female Iraqi prisoners are freed from jail.
It comes just hours after British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw warned there was little hope of securing the release of Bigley.
Speaking from the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Straw said: "We continue to do everything we can to secure Kenneth Bigley's safe release but it would be idle to pretend that there's a great deal of hope."
The kidnappers have already beheaded two US hostages who were captured with Bigley in Baghdad last Thursday. (albawaba.com)
© 2004 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
