Lawyers say killed hostage buried near Falluja

ISTANBUL - The lawyers of a suspected al Qaeda militant now on trial in Turkey said yesterday their client had revealed that the body of Kenneth Bigley, the British engineer beheaded in Iraq in 2004, had been buried near Falluja.

The militant, Syrian-born Louai al Sakka, claims to have taken part in the mock trial and sentencing of Bigley.

Lawyer Levent Dogus told Reuters Television the body was buried in a ditch near a pond at the entrance to Falluja, 50km north of Baghdad, on the road from Nuaimiya.

He provided a rough sketch of the location and said it was well-known to local people.

Dogus and Sakka's main lawyer, Osman Karahan, also said Bigley's kidnappers had sold the Briton's jeep for US$12,000 ($19,000) and distributed the money among the people of Falluja.

There was no way of verifying the lawyers' claims.

"After the growing demands of the British media and family, we decided to say where the body is located," Karahan said.

Bigley's family has appealed to his killers many times to return the body for a formal burial and on Saturday his brother Paul told Sky News that recovering the body for burial was the family's only goal.

"Let's hope it's true, because that will then enable us to have a closure in the whole thing," he said.

"Whatever we do or say will not bring Ken back alive. All we are hoping is that we can bring his remains home and bury him."

Karahan said the kidnappers had decided to execute Bigley after finding technical information on his laptop concerning the US occupying forces in Iraq which they believed showed he had links with them.

The kidnappers asked for the release of all women prisoners from Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison in return for Bigley's release, but Prime Minister Tony Blair rejected their demand, Karahan said.

"When Bigley saw Blair's letter (rejecting the abductors' demands) he began to cry. He said 'How cheap a British life is. Okay, kill me then'," Karahan said.

In London, the Foreign Office said in a statement it was following up the claims made by Sakka's lawyers.

Sakka is on trial charged with masterminding and securing finance for bomb attacks on British and Jewish targets in Istanbul in 2003 which killed more than 60 people. He is believed to have escaped to Iraq after those bombings.

Security sources say Sakka, a bomb-making expert, was the top figure of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda in Turkey

He was caught in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir in August 2005 as he tried to board a plane for Istanbul under an assumed name. He had undergone plastic surgery.

Turkish media have quoted Sakka as saying he had planned to carry out an attack on an Israeli cruise ship visiting Turkey.

Sakka's trial opened last month in Istanbul.

- REUTERS