British hostage in Iraq appears in video, hopes rise for French journalists

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Kidnapped British engineer Kenneth Bigley begged London to meet his captors' demands and free Iraqi prisoners, in a new video broadcast on Arab television, amid a flurry of hostage releases.
And Bigley's younger brother Paul said he had received a written translation of a message from the kidnappers suggesting they would spare the 62-year-old Briton's life and free him.
Hopes were high, meanwhile, for the release of two French journalists snatched five weeks ago following the release of up to 10 hostages, including two Italian women aid workers, since Monday night.
An exhausted-looking and unshaven Bigley appeared in the latest video on Al-Jazeera satellite television, saying: "He doesn't care about me," in an apparent reference to British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
"I'm only one ... just one person," he adds.
Bigley's hands and feet were shown tied with a rope that also went around his neck. The metal cage, in front of a brick wall, did not appear high enough for him to stand up.
According to the Qatar-based station, the hostage called on Blair "to work to free Iraqi prisoners" and said his "kidnappers do not want to kill him".
It was the first time that Bigley was shown alive since a video released on September 22 in which he appealed for the British prime minister to intervene for the release of women prisoners in Iraq.
The British government said Wednesday it was trying to make contact with Islamists holding Bigley and to authenticate Internet messages announcing his imminent release.
But Blair said it may not be so easy with Bigley, who is being held by the Unity and Holy War group led by Abu Musab al Zarqawi, a Jordanian linked to the Al-Qaeda network.
The group beheaded Bigley's two American colleagues last week. They were seized together on September 16 from their Baghdad home.
The ordeal for two French reporters looked to be coming to an end as a French negotiator in Iraq claimed he secured a deal for their release after their five-week stay in captivity.
"I have met the two hostages ... The release is a done deal, without any ambiguity. There have been no negotiations, and no compensation," Philippe Brett, an assistant to a French MP who had contacts with the old Iraqi regime, told AFP by telephone.
The French foreign ministry has so far denied any knowledge of an agreement to free French journalists Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot.
The potential breakthrough came after the jubilant return of two Italian aid workers to Italy after three turbulent weeks in captivity.
Simona Torretta and Simona Pari, both 29, arrived at Rome's Ciampino military airport late Tuesday to be showered with hugs and flowers by their families and colleagues from their aid agency, A Bridge to Baghdad.
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who backed the US-led war to oust Saddam Hussein and has sent some 3,000 Italian troops and police to serve in the US-led coalition in Iraq, described their release as a "moment of joy".
Almost simultaneously, telecom firm Orascom announced late Tuesday that three Egyptians captured last week had also been released.
The three were kidnapped last week in western Iraq, together with another Egyptian and two Iraqis employed by the same company. The others were released late Monday.
Al-Arabiya television reported that another two Orascom employees snatched from Baghdad had also been freed, but this could not be confirmed.
An Iranian diplomat, Fereydun Jahani, freed after a 55-day ordeal as a hostage in Iraq returned home Wednesday, with Tehran insisting that no deal had been struck with his kidnappers.
As the hostage drama played itself out, Iraq's daily diet of violence claimed more than 10 lives.
Abdel Ghani Mijbas, a member of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a Shiite political party, was traveling with his teenage son when gunmen lobbed grenades and then shot them dead in Baquba.
Five Iraqi intelligence security agents were killed late Tuesday near the southern city of Basra after freeing a hostage who was then recaptured by assailants, the local intelligence chief said.
Commander Jassem Darraji told AFP that the squad was about to hand over a hostage to his family when their convoy came under fire north of Basra.
A car bomb in Mosul exploded late Tuesday as a US convoy drove near the city's main university, wounding six US soldiers, all but one of them lightly, said American military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Paul Hastings.
Two Iraqi security guards were also wounded in the attack, the latest of a string of deadly ambushes and bomb attacks in the northern city.
Also in Mosul, the local coordinator for the World Vision NGO was assassinated overnight by unknown attackers, police told AFP.
The US military, meanwhile, said it shot dead an Iraqi civilian early Wednesday after he failed to stop at a checkpoint near the restive city of Baquba, north of Baghdad.
In Baghdad, one person was killed and another wounded as they were planting a bomb in the central Sunni neighbourhood of Aazamiyah, a witness said.
And in the insurgent stronghold of Ramadi, west of Fallujah, a policeman was shot dead early Wednesday, medics said.