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| Iraq |
| Search ordered for Bigley's grave |
| 2006-04-23 |
| The Foreign Office pledged last night to investigate a claim that the decapitated body of murdered hostage Ken Bigley is buried near Fallujah in Iraq. Osman Karahan, a lawyer acting for a suspected al-Qaeda militant, Loa'i Mohammed Haj Bakr al-Saqa, who is accused of ordering Bigley's death, has said his client knows where the British engineer's body is buried. Al-Saqa, 33, is being held by the authorities in Turkey, accused of bankrolling bomb attacks in Istanbul in November 2003. More than 600 were injured and 61 people died in the attacks. Turkish authorities discovered al-Saqa had slipped in and out of the country at least 55 times and say he may have had plastic surgery to change his appearance. Karahan said his client was president of an informal court that sentenced Bigley to death. 'He took the decision,' the lawyer said. 'We have no information on the execution of the sentence.' The ditch where Bigley was buried, at an entrance to the city of Fallujah, was about 50 metres from an insurgent checkpoint. Al-Saqa claims to have met Osama bin Laden and to have provided false passports for some of the 11 September attackers. He is thought to have been in Iraq at the time of Bigley 's murder. It is thought unlikely that investigators will at this stage start digging in the area. But it is possible police will interview al-Saqa in Turkey after his trial. 'We are following up the claims as we have pursued every possible lead,' a Foreign Office spokesman said. 'We never regard a case like this as closed.' Bigley, 62, from Walton, Liverpool, was taken hostage in Baghdad, where he was working, on 16 September 2004, and beheaded more than three weeks later. Eugene Armstrong and Jack Henley, two US hostages kidnapped with him, were also murdered. Yesterday Bigley's brother, Stan, said he would reserve judgment on the claim. He had been told that Foreign Office officials had been sent to investigate. 'I just hope that the powers-that-be will do what's necessary to either verify that this is Ken's location or not, because it's driving us all up the wall,' he said. Since her husband's murder, his Thai-born widow Sombat has been forced to rely on money sent by his relatives after a hold-up in settling his estate. Her brother-in-law, Phil Bigley said: 'It upsets us all that Sombat is in this position.' |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |