Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi appealed today to kidnappers in Iraq to free American contractor Mr Roy Hallums, Arab television Al Jazeera said.
Insurgents distributed a video showing Hallums, who was abducted in November, pleading for help from Gaddafi and other Arab leaders but not U.S. President George W. Bush.
"As a response to the plea, we ask the Iraqi resistance in the name of Islam and Arabism to free him," the satellite channel quoted a statement from Gaddafi as saying.
Mr Hallums was taken hostage along with five other men in Baghdad. Three Iraqis and a Nepali seized with him have already been released but the whereabouts of a Filipino remain unknown.
"I am asking for help from Arab rulers, especially President Muammar Gaddafi ... so that I can be released as quickly as possible from this definite death," Hallums said in the video.
In October Gaddafi appealed for the release of British hostage Mr Kenneth Bigley who was later beheaded by the al Qaeda wing in Iraq.
Libya's ties with the West have improved since Tripoli decided in 2003 to abandon weapons of mass destruction and took responsibility for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing.
Mr Hallums is one of more than 100 foreigners to have been taken hostage in Iraq since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.
Around a third of those have been killed, several by beheading.