A MESSAGE claiming to be from a group led by the Islamic militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has called for the release of Margaret Hassan, the British charity worker held hostage in Iraq.

Hassan’s kidnappers had been threatening to hand her to al-Zarqawi’s group, blamed for beheading the Liverpool-born engineer Ken Bigley, unless British troops quit Iraq.

The message from al-Zarqawi’s group says Hassan, who is married to an Iraqi, will be freed if she falls into their hands. The message, signed “Al-Qaeda in Iraq”, was posted on a website known for publishing messages from Islamic militant groups.

It urges the kidnappers to publish any evidence against her and seeks her immediate release if she is not proven a spy “conspiring against Muslims”.

“These people who are using this prisoner as a playing card didn’t [sic] know our religion very well,” the message states.

Hassan, 59, director in Iraq for the charity Care International, was kidnapped on October 19. Videos of her in captivity have been broadcast, although no group has claimed responsibility. In two recordings, she pleaded for her life.

The online statement was coupled with a separate posting in which the same group claimed responsibility for the suicide attack that killed three Black Watch soldiers last week.

Al-Zarqawi is believed to have been behind the beheading last month of Bigley and two Americans. He is the most wanted man in Iraq with a £13.4m bounty offered by the Americans for information leading to his capture. His group is believed to have been responsible for numerous car bombs, beheadings of foreign hostages and other attacks.

In a separate development, hopes were raised last night for the release of three UN workers held in Afghanistan, after claims by their kidnappers that talks would be held today with the government and the UN.

Annetta Flanigan, from Richhill, Co Armagh, was kidnapped in Kabul on October 28 together with Angelito Nayan, a Filipino diplomat, and Shqipe Habibi, a Kosovan woman.

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