BAGHDAD - An Australian cleric in Iraq to negotiate the release of a kidnapped contractor prayed in a Sunni mosque in Baghdad on Friday for the hostage's freedom.
"I came here to pray for the release of Douglas Wood," Australian mufti Sheikh Taj Eldin al-Hilali told AFP, calling on the Australian's captors to provide him with medical treatment.
The hostage's family says 63-year-old Wood is suffering from a number of life-threatening illnesses, including heart disease, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and rheumatoid arthritis.
"Douglas Wood's abduction is a matter which affects all Muslims worldwide," Hilali said after Friday prayers in Baghdad's Abdel Kader al-Gilani mosque.
"I met several people in Iraq who promised me to do their utmost" to secure Wood's release, he added.
In footage released last weekend by an extremist Sunni organisation, a badly bruised Wood was seen pleading for his life as rifles were pointed at his head.
Hilali said Thursday after meeting members of the Committee of Muslim Scholars, the country's leading Sunni Muslim authority, that he was confident of the Australian's release.
The sheikh had said a deadline set by Wood's kidnappers for the withdrawal of Australian troops from Iraq that expired on Tuesday had been extended to Thursday at 1400 GMT but there has been no news of him.
Australia, a close US ally, took part in the US-led invasion of March 2003 and still has about 550 troops stationed in Iraq, has refused the kidnappers' demands.
05/13/2005 12:27 GMT