LONDON, Sept 23 (AFP) - Britain made it clear Thursday that it would not deal with Islamic extremists in Iraq holding engineer Kenneth Bigley, despite a dramatic appeal from the hostage begging Prime Minister Tony Blair to intervene and save his life.
Bigley's Thai wife, Sombat Bigley, added her voice Thursday to his family's desperate appeals to the Tawhid wal Jihad (Unity and Holy War) group to spare the life of the 62-year-old engineer from Liverpool.
Bigley was snatched from his Baghdad home one week ago, along with two US colleagues who have since been executed. His captors have been demanding the release of women detained in US-run Iraqi prisons.
"My name is Sombat Bigley. I am Ken Bigley's wife. We have been married for seven years and I love him very much," said Mrs Bigley in an emotional appeal, made in her native Thai language and video-taped in Bangkok.
"I plead for your mercy now and beg that you release Ken so that I may be with him again and so that he may also be re-united with his family in England," she said, visibily shaken.
But in London, a spokesman for Blair -- who had been hoping that Iraq would fade from the headlines as he prepares for a looming general election -- said there was no change to Downing Street's uncompromising line.
"We're following the situation very closely, and our feelings are very much with Ken Bigley and his family," the spokesman told AFP. "The government is doing all it can to secure his release, (but) we have no intention of negotiating with terrorists."
Bigley appeared in a fuzzy video seen Thursday on the Internet, in which he appealed to Blair: "I need you to be compassionate as you always said you were and to help me to live..."
"I don't want to die... Please, please release the female prisoners... I need your help, Mr Blair. You are now the only person on God's earth that I can speak to."
There was no word from Blair himself, while his wife Cherie Blair -- attending a senior citizens' event -- only said: "Like everyone in Britain, my heart goes out to the Bigley family."
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who spoke with the Bigleys on Wednesday, told BBC radio from the UN General Assembly in New York: "I have only admiration for the courage and forbearance that they are showing in unbelievably difficult circumstances."
But he added: "The sense I have is that there is nobody in the UK who believes that the terrorists and insurgents who are now trying to destroy democracy in Iraq should be allowed to succeed."
While Mrs Bigley has remained in Thailand, other members of Bigley's family gathered in Liverpool, in the northwest of England, with his elderly mother.
His brother Paul Bigley revealed on BBC radio that he has been conducting his own low-key contacts in the Middle East, where Bigley -- who was only days from retirement -- has worked for many years.
He did not elaborate, but made no secret of his anger at US officials who had "sabotaged" a move Wednesday by Iraq's judicial authorities to release a female detainee, biological weapons scientist Rahid Rashid Taha.
"Is this a puppet (Iraqi) government, or are the Americans moving the goalposts to suit their own means again?" asked Paul Bigley. "What's going on here? Leave the Iraqis to do their own Iraqi business."
In Liverpool, local Anglican bishop James Jones and Muslim cleric Akbar Ali united Thursday for a televised joint appeal to Bigley's captors, though they agreed that Blair was right not to negotiate with them.
"Whatever you think of his politics, the prime minister is a compassionate person ... but the government has constraints," Jones said. "It is impossible to negotiate with hostage-takers."