A videotape has surfaced in Iraq that appears to show the murder of a kidnapped humanitarian aid worker, who spent decades working to help the Iraqi people. The husband of Margaret Hassan, Iraq's director of CARE International, has made an appeal to her abductors to reveal where she is, so that if she has been killed he can give her a proper burial.
The Arabic satellite television station Al-Jazeera said it received a videotape a few days ago that appears to show 59-year-old humanitarian aid worker Margaret Hassan being executed by her captors.
In the video, a blindfolded woman, who appears to be Ms. Hassan, the director of the aid organization CARE in Iraq, is shot dead.
In Baghdad, her husband of 30-years, Tahsin Hassan, told Al-Jazeera that he has been told by the British embassy in Baghdad that there is a videotape that appears to show his wife's execution. Mr. Hassan then made an appeal to the kidnappers.
Mr. Hassan said he wants to know if his wife is dead or alive, and he appealed to her captors to reveal the whereabouts of her body, if she has been killed, so that he can give her a proper and peaceful burial.
Ms. Hassan, a British and Iraqi citizen, was kidnapped October 19 while traveling to her office in Baghdad. She had lived in Iraq for more than 30-years.
Her abductors never revealed their identity. However, in two videotapes released after her kidnapping, Ms. Hassan tearfully pleaded for her life while she asked the British military not to move troops from southern Iraq to Baghdad. She also asked the British government to remove its troops from Iraq.
Roughly 750 British troops stationed near Basra, in southern Iraq, were re-deployed near Baghdad just prior to the joint U.S.-Iraqi invasion of Fallujah.
Of the eight women known to have been kidnapped in Iraq since last year, Margaret Hassan would be the first to have been killed. All of the others were released.
In total, more than 35 foreign kidnap victims in Iraq have been executed.