Home > Iraq : the body found was not Margaret Hassan
International Attack-Terrorism
The mutilated body of a Western woman found in Iraq in mid-November was not that of Margaret Hassan, the British Foreign Office said, adding that it believed the abducted aid worker had been murdered.
Dental tests had shown that the body found by US marines in the former rebel stronghold of Fallujah was not that of the 59-year-old woman, a Foreign Office spokesman in London said.
Ms Hassan, the British-Irish director of CARE International in Iraq and a longtime Baghdad resident with Iraqi citizenship, was abducted on October 19 and appeared several times in videos warning that her life was at risk.
"We still believe that Margaret Hassan probably has been murdered," the Foreign Office spokesman said.
"You cannot be absolutely certain until you have a body, which we don’t," he added.
"All the evidence we have is the video footage. As far as we are concerned it demonstrates that she probably has been murdered, but it is not 100 per cent conclusive," he said.
Al Jazeera satellite television said on November 16 it had received a video showing the execution of a man shooting a "blind-folded woman, who appears to be Margaret Hassan".
The body discovered in the streets of Fallujah - a notorious enclave for Iraqi hostage-takers before a massive US incursion into the city last month - was blond-haired, and had its legs and arms cut off and throat slit.
Ms Hassan, a brunette, had lived in Iraq for over 30 years and was married to an Iraqi.
She is the most senior figure to date to be seized during a slew of hostage-takings in the war-wracked country.