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Clark urges captors to release Sooden

Mr Sooden, 32, a Canadian citizen who lived and studied in New Zealand, was shown yesterday on a video broadcast on Al Jazeera television along with three other peace activists captured more than two months ago.

It was the first news of the hostages since December 7, when their captors, the Swords of Truth group, said they would be killed on December 10 unless Iraqi prisoners in American and Iraqi prisons were released.

Al Jazeera reported Swords of Truth saying that US-led forces had one last chance to free Iraqi prisoners or they would kill the hostages.

Miss Clark said Mr Sooden's family would be delighted that the video shown today, which was dated January 21, showed that he and his colleagues were still alive.

"Harmeet's family and the families of the three other hostages with him have had a long and worrying delay since they last heard news of their loved ones," Miss Clark said.

"The New Zealand Government continues to urge the captors of Harmeet and his friends to release them. All four were on a peaceful mission to Iraq, and were motivated purely by a desire to help the Iraqi people."

Mr Sooden, Briton Norman Kember, American Tom Fox and Canadian James Loney were kidnapped on November 26 in Baghdad, where they were working with a Christian peace organisation, Christian Peacemaker Teams.

The previously unknown Swords of Truth had claimed the quartet were spies but friends and several groups, both Muslim and Christian, have insisted they were friends of the Iraqi people and against the American-led presence in Iraq.

Several broadcasts have been played on Al Jazeera pleading for their release.

Diplomatic efforts to free Mr Sooden have been led by the Canadian government, which Miss Clark said New Zealand was doing its best to support.

"Our government will continue to liaise closely with the government of Canada and other governments to support their efforts to secure the release of Harmeet and his friends," she said.

The video broadcast on Al Jazeera apparently showed the four hostages standing against a wall. The grainy footage, shot in a dark room, was dated January 21.

The hostages appeared to be speaking to the camera but their voices could not be heard.

"The group. . . said it was giving a last chance for its demands to be met through the release of Iraqi prisoners in American and Iraqi prisons in exchange for the release of the four hostages," Al Jazeera reported.

Reverend Alan Betteridge, president of the Baptist Peace Fellowship to which Mr Kember, 74, belongs, said he was happy to see evidence the four were alive but concerned over the threat.

"We're very sorry that they're still talking in those violent terms after all the appeals from the Muslim world and others for the release of these non-violent peacemakers who were in Iraq for the benefit of justice and peace in that land," Mr Betteridge, a close friend of Mr Kember, said.

In a message to the captors, Mr Betteridge said: "Please release these four people, who are there genuinely as non-violent peacemakers."

Chicago-based Christian Peacemaker Teams said: "We are so grateful and heartened to see James, Harmeet, Norman and Tom alive on the video tape dated January 21. This news is an answer to our prayers. We continue to hope and pray for their release.

"We continue to believe that what has happened to our team-mates is the result of the actions of the US and UK governments in their illegal attack on Iraq and the continuing occupation and oppression of its people. We continue to call for justice and human rights for all who are detained in Iraq."

Muslim scholars and activists from around the world, including leaders of the militant Hamas and Hizbollah groups, have appealed for the release of the aid workers.