Britain said yesterday it would not negotiate with militants threatening to kill a British captive in Iraq, despite a video message from the hostage pleading for his life and saying “I don’t deserve to die”.

Italian government sources urged “utmost caution” over an Internet statement saying two female Italian aid workers kidnapped in Iraq had been killed, as there was no evidence to confirm the report.

The Internet statement said the women had been killed because Italy had not pulled its troops out of Iraq. The two were kidnapped in broad daylight in Baghdad earlier this month. Last Thursday, Americans Eugene Armstrong and Jack Hensley and Briton Kenneth Bigley were seized by gunmen at the house they shared in Baghdad.

The Tawhid and Jihad group led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi says it had killed Armstrong and Hensley because the US military rejected its demand to free all Iraqi women from US- run prisons in Iraq.

The Iraqi government said Prime Minister Iyad Allawi would not bow to the demands of hostage-takers and was not willing to allow the release of a female prisoner, Rihab Taha.

Video footage showing the beheading of the two Americans has been posted on the Internet. Both men were shown wearing orange overalls, which militant groups have often forced captives to wear in a reference to the clothing worn by inmates in US prisons like Abu Ghraib in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

<B>Desperate plea</B>

The videos show masked gunmen standing behind the blindfolded hostages, whose throats are then slit and their heads severed. CIA officials say analysis of the footage of Armstrong’s killing suggests Zarqawi himself wielded the knife.

In a separate video message released by the kidnappers, the 62-year-old Bigley was shown pleading for his life and appealing for help to British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

“I don’t want to die. I don’t deserve it,” Bigley said. He was wearing the same kind of orange overalls that Armstrong and Hensley were made to wear before they were killed.

Bigley sobbed as he said he wanted to see his family again. “I think this is my last chance to speak. I don’t want to die in Iraq, neither do the women in the prisons,” he said in the 11-minute message. “I want to live, I want to live.” Bigley appealed to Blair to meet the kidnappers’ demands.

“Mr Blair, I’m nothing to you, just one person in the United Kingdom with a family like you... You can help, I know you can. These people are not asking for the world, they’re asking for their wives, their mothers and children,” he said. “Please Mr Blair, show us some of the compassion that you say you have.”

“But I’m afraid to say it can’t alter the position of the British government. It’s adding torture to the appalling situation in which these evil terrorists have placed Mr Bigley.”

Straw added: “We can’t get into a situation of bargaining with terrorists because this would put many more people’s lives at risk, not only in Iraq but around the world.”

Bigley’s brother Paul clung to the hope the video was recent, telling Reuters: “The man is alive ... This means we have some sort of a link.”

The US military says it only holds two female prisoners in Iraq. Rihab Taha and Huda Ammash, dubbed “Dr Germ” and “Mrs Anthrax” by US forces, are accused of working on former president Saddam Hussein’s weapons programmes.

Iraq’s Justice Ministry said on Wednesday Taha’s case was under review and she could be released later in the day. But the US embassy later said that neither Taha nor Ammash would be released imminently.

The Baghdad government said yesterday Taha was among three high-profile prisoners who had been recommended for possible release after a review by US-led forces in Iraq. “The Iraqi government has not yet completed its deliberations on the matter, but the prime minister has indicated that he is not willing to agree to the release of Rihab Rashid Taha at this time,” it said in a statement.

Discussions on her possible release were unrelated to the kidnappers’ demands, it added.

<B>“Dr Germ may be freed”</B>

Since April, militant groups in Iraq have seized more than 100 hostages. Most have been released but about 30 have been killed. Among those still believed to be held are two French journalists captured south of Baghdad last month.

In an Internet statement, a group called the Jihad Organisation said it had killed the two Italian women seized this month, Simona Pari and Simona Torretta. But the aid organisation that employs them said the statement was “not very credible” and Italy’s government also urged caution.

The hostage crisis has added to the pressure on Iraq’s interim government as it tries to tackle a widespread insurgency ahead of elections scheduled for January. This month has seen a surge in suicide car bomb attacks in Baghdad.

In one suicide attack in Baghdad on Wednesday, five US soldiers were wounded and one of them later died, the army said.

ITALY

<B>Government says claim hostages killed “unreliable”</B>

The Italian government has dismissed as “unreliable” claims that two Italian women held hostage in Iraq had been killed, the speaker of Italy’s lower house of parliament said on yesterday.Pierferdinando Casini told the lower chamber that the government was treating the claims, posted on the Internet, “with total suspicion” because they were “unreliable”.

<B>Andrew Marshall</B>