RELATED LINKS » Have your say » Subscribe to Archivestuff

FLAME OF HOPE: A peace candle at Wellington's Cenotaph burns near Serena Moran, one of a group of peace activists holding a vigil for the four hostages in Iraq. ROSS GIBLIN

Another 48 hours of hope

Harmeet Singh Sooden and three others were due to be executed yesterday when an Arabic television network reported that the deadline had been extended till Sunday.

Mr Sooden's brother-in-law Mark Brewer did not know why the deadline had been extended.

"Obviously today was the deadline and a moving deadline is much better," he said. But it meant another agonising wait for the family.

Mr Brewer, wife Preety and Mr Sooden's parents spent yesterday morning "pacing the floor, answering phones and waiting for news".

Mr Sooden, 32, is a Canadian citizen, but has studied in New Zealand for three years. He and Canadian James Loney, Briton Norman Kember and American Tom Fox were in Iraq with the anti-war Christian Peacemaker Teams.

Their Iraqi captors, calling themselves the Swords of Righteousness Brigade, said it would kill the men unless all prisoners in American and Iraqi detention centres were freed by December 8.

Al Jazeera television showed video footage of Mr Fox and Mr Kember blindfolded, shackled and wearing Guantanamo Bay-style orange jumpsuits and appealing to their governments to stop the war.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said no country could meet the captors' demands.

Foreign Affairs Minister Winston

Peters said the lack of contact with the Iraqi captors was hugely frustrating.

Last night more than 20 peace activists gathered at the Cenotaph in Wellington as part of a vigil of hope for the captives.