British hostage Kenneth Bigley appeared in a video tape aired on Wednesday, pleading with Prime Minister Tony Blair to meet the demands of his captors and release women prisoners in Iraq.  

Kenneth Bigley, captured on Sept. 16 in Baghdad, was shown on Arab TV channel al-Jazeera crouching behind bars wearing an orange jumpsuit.

Kenneth said in the video that "Tony Blair is lying. He doesn't care about me. I'm just one person," according to the BBC.

He said his captors did not want to kill him.

Earlier, Blair said at the Labor Party conference in Brighton, South England, that efforts were being made to establish links with the kidnappers.

The British government is trying to make contact with that particular group, but the difficulty is that they are not Iraqis, said Blair.

On Wednesday morning, Kenneth's brother Paul Bigley said he was upbeat about the possibility of his release after he had received a message that suggested Kenneth's release.

A communiqué was posted on Tuesday night on the Arabic-language website www.alqalah.com, in the name of the Tawhid and Jihad group of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, which kidnapped Kenneth.

"I believe it is true and we are hoping and waiting to see what happens now," he told the Independent Television News after he received a written translation of the statement.

The British government could not confirm the report and was trying to authenticate the message while making efforts to release the hostage, said a spokesperson for the Foreign Office.

Analysts urged caution over the report, pointing out that other claims made on Islamic websites turned out to be completely false.

(Xinhua News Agency September 30, 2004)