BRITAIN: The British Foreign Secretary, Mr Jack Straw, disclosed yesterday that messages were sent to the captors of Mr Kenneth Bigley, the 62-year-old engineer kidnapped and eventually murdered in Iraq, urging his captors not to kill him.
They were taken by a go-between who approached the British embassy in Baghdad claiming to be able to bargain with the kidnappers. There were reports yesterday that Mr Bigley's body had been dumped near Baghdad on Friday. However, it has not yet been found.
Mr Straw said in a House of Commons statement that the "potential intermediary" took messages to Mr Bigley's captors trying to dissuade them from carrying out their threat to kill him.
The Foreign Secretary said the Bigley family in Liverpool and Mr Bigley's wife in Thailand were kept fully informed of the dealings with the go-between - who eventually provided "proof beyond doubt" of the hostage's death.
In a separate development, Mr Straw said his government was formally withdrawing its controversial claim that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons capable of being deployed within 45 minutes.
On Mr Bigley, Mr Straw told MPs: "At the beginning of last week an individual approached the British embassy, presenting himself as a potential intermediary with the captors.
"These communications were fully in line with the government's long-standing approach to kidnapping - that whilst ready to receive messages from kidnappers, we cannot negotiate with them."
The Foreign Secretary added: "Ken Bigley was a decent man who was in Iraq for no other purpose than to earn his living, working for the benefit of the Iraqi people.
"His capture, the ordeal imposed on him and his family, and his murder were acts of utter barbarism."
On the notorious 45-minute claim, Mr Straw disclosed that a further line of intelligence reporting on Iraqi production of biological weapons agents before the war had also now been withdrawn by MI6 chief, Mr John Scarlett.
Mr Straw's statement means that the Secret Intelligence Service has had to withdraw three of its main lines of intelligence reporting on Iraq's weapons prior to the war.
In his report on the Iraq intelligence published in July, the former cabinet secretary Lord Butler disclosed MI6 had already withdrawn the intelligence from one of its main sources in the country as it was now considered unreliable.
The Butler report also criticised the use of the 45-minute claim in the government's dossier on Iraqi weapons published before the war.