SOFIA, July 15 (AFP) - Bulgaria said on Thursday there was little hope of saving the life of one of its citizens held hostage in Iraq, in the light of the beheading earlier this week of another Bulgarian captive.
"With every hour that passes the situation becomes increasingly serious and the probability that he will be saved increasingly fades," Foreign Minister Solomon Passi told private bTV television.
He said Sofia had no reliable information on the condition of the second hostage, identified as Ivailo Kepov, a day after the expiry of the deadline set by his kidnappers for the release of Iraqi prisoners.
Passi said a body had been found near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul and his government was in contact with the local authorities to determine whether it was that of the first hostage, Georgy Lazov.
The Qatar-based Arabic television station Al-Jazeera said on Tuesday that Lazov had been beheaded and showed a short video clip of him before his execution.
Lazov and Kepov, both truck drivers, were kidnapped near Mosul on July 8 by a group called the Tawhid wal Jihad (Unity and Holy War).
Colonel Kirtcho Kirov, head of Bulgarian intelligence, told members of parliament on Wednesday that his services had been informed by a source, other than Al-Jazeera, that Lazov was dead.