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["Toni Hawryluk" <tonihawr AT msn.com>]

http://famulus.msnbc.com/famulusintl/ap11-16-093946.asp?reg=mideast&vts=111620041034<http://famulus.msnbc.com/famulusintl/ap11-16-093946.asp?reg=mideast&vts=111620041034>

 

Family believes British hostage Margaret Hassan dead

Al-Jazeera says it has video of slaying

ASSOCIATED PRESS

LONDON, Nov. 16 - Kidnapped aid worker Margaret Hassan was believed to be 
dead Tuesday after a video received by Al-Jazeera television showed a hooded 
figure shooting a blindfolded woman in the head. 

 

Hassan's family in <>London said they believed the longtime director of CARE 
in Iraq was the victim. CARE said it was in mourning for the 59-year-old 
Briton who worked for decades providing food, medicine and humanitarian aid 
to Iraqis. 


The video shows a militant firing a pistol into the head of a blindfolded 
woman wearing an orange jumpsuit, Al-Jazeera spokesman Jihad Ballout said. 
''She was presumed to be Mrs. Hassan,'' he told The Associated Press. 


The station initially said it would air parts of the video, but Ballout then 
said it would not. 


Hassan was abducted in Baghdad on Oct. 19, the most prominent of more than 
170 foreigners kidnapped in Iraq this year. Her captors later issued videos 
showing her pleading for Britain to withdraw its troops from Iraq and calling 
for the release of female Iraqi prisoners. 


Ballout said the station received the tape a few days ago but had not been 
sure of its authenticity. 


''We invited British diplomatic officials to come and view it ... with the 
aim of helping us ascertain whether it was Mrs. Hassan or not,'' he said. 
''It's now likely that the image depicts Mrs. Hassan.'' 


''It is with profound sadness that we have learned of the existence of a 
video in which it appears that our colleague Margaret Hassan has been 
killed,'' CARE said in a statement. ''The whole of CARE is in mourning.'' 


Her four brothers and sisters said they believe Hassan is dead. 


''Our hearts are broken,'' they said in a statement released by the British 
Foreign Office. ''We have kept hoping for as long as we could, but we now 
have to accept that Margaret has probably gone and at last her suffering has 
ended.'' 


The family did not indicate why they now believed Hassan was dead, but said: 
''Those who are guilty of this atrocious act, and those who support them, 
have no excuses.'' 


On Sunday, U.S. Marines found the mutilated body of what they believe was a 
Western woman on a street in a Fallujah during the U.S. assault on the 
insurgent stronghold. Besides Hassan, the only Western woman known held was 
Teresa Borcz Khalifa, 54, a Polish-born longtime resident of Iraq who was 
seized last month. 


Al-Jazeera reported on Nov. 2 that Hassan's captors had threatened to turn 
her over to followers of Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. 


Al-Zarqawi and his men have been blamed for numerous deadly car bombings and 
the slayings of foreign hostages, including three Americans and a Briton. 
More than 170 foreigners have been kidnapped in Iraq this year; more than 30 
of them have been slain. 


Born in Ireland, Hassan also held British and Iraqi citizenship. She lived in 
Iraq for 30 years and married an Iraqi. 


In its statement, her family said: ''Nobody can justify this. Margaret was 
against sanctions and the war. To commit such a crime against anyone is 
unforgivable. But we cannot believe how anybody could do this to our kind, 
compassionate sister. 


''The gap she leaves will never be filled.'' 



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