Death
Despite the efforts to save him, Bigley was beheaded on 7 October 2004. His death was first reported on Abu Dhabi television the following day. A multi-faith memorial service, attended by Tony Blair and his wife Cherie, was held for him in Liverpool on 13 November. His body has not been recovered, although an alleged al-Qaeda militant awaiting trial for the 2003 Istanbul bombings has claimed he is "buried in a ditch at the entrance to Fallujah".
The kidnappers made a film apparently showing Bigley's killing, and the tape was subsequently posted on Islamist websites and on one "shock" site. According to reporters who watched the film, Bigley was wearing an orange jumpsuit, and read out a statement, before one of the kidnappers stepped forward and cut off his head with a knife. The bloodied head was then placed on top of Bigley's abdomen.
News reports published after Bigley's death suggested he had briefly managed to escape from the kidnappers with the help of two MI6 agents of Syrian and Iraqi origin, who paid two of his captors to help him. The captors attempted to drive Bigley, who was carrying a gun and was disguised, out of town, the reports said, but he was spotted and recaptured at an insurgent checkpoint. The two captors were said to have been beheaded.
After his death, the British media were criticised for the amount of news coverage his situation had been given. The same high-coverage news strategy was notably absent in the case of Margaret Hassan, the Irish-born aid worker, who held Irish, British and Iraqi citizenship, who was kidnapped on 19 October 2004 and killed two weeks later.
Columnist and author Mark Steyn had his column pulled from the British Daily Telegraph on 11 October 2004 when in it he stated that Bigley's last words "Tony Blair has not done enough for me" would not be high up on his list of final utterances.
In October 2004, during an 18-night stint at London's Hammersmith Apollo, the Scottish comedian Billy Connolly was criticised for making jokes about the hostage Bigley. Shortly after Connolly joked about the future killing of the hostage and touched on the subject of Bigley's young Thai wife, showing little regard for the desperate situation both she and Kenneth Bigley's family were in at the time. Connolly claims he was misquoted. He has declined to clarify what he actually said, claiming that the context was as important as the precise words used. However, it was reported that Connolly actually said, "When you hear about Bigley in the news, don't you wish they would just get on with it?" Connolly's routine has since been defended by his fans as an attack on the prurient media coverage of the incident, rather than a tasteless comment at the expense of the Bigleys.
Read more about this topic: Kenneth Bigley
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