A British MP will tonight appear on Al-Jazeera television to appeal for the release of an Irish-born aid worker kidnapped in Iraq.
Mr George Galloway, known for his links with Iraq, will appear on the pan-Arab broadcaster at 9 p.m. tonight urging the captors of Ms Margaret Hassan to release her.
The Scottish MP, who was thrown out of the Labour Party for his outspoken opposition to the Iraq war, today launched the appeal "in the name of the anti-war movement".
"I have deliberately not involved myself before in any of these situations.
"But this woman has been a prominent opponent of both the war and the preceding years of sanctions. I am prepared to do anything I can to help save her life."
Mrs Hassan is the director of operations in Iraq for the aid agency CARE International. The 59-year-old, who has lived in Iraq for 30 years and is married to an Iraqi, was seized by gunmen on her way to work in Baghdad on October 19th.
Mr Galloway has been a regular visitor to Iraq and is considered to have some influence in the country despite his friendship with deposed dictator Saddam Hussein. It is understood he and Mrs Hassan have mutual friends.
Mrs Hassan, who has dual British and Iraqi nationality but was born in Ireland , has been shown on several videos released by her kidnappers.
Hours after being seized, footage of Mrs Hassan, her hands bound behind her back and looking "very distressed", was shown on Al-Jazeera TV.
On October 22nd, Al-Jazeera broadcast a new video of the captive weeping and pleading for the British people to save her life, saying she did not want to die like hostage Ken Bigley, who was beheaded by his captors.