Headless corpse found in the Tigris

Al-Jazeera | July 16 2004

A headless corpse dressed in an orange jumpsuit has been found by Iraqi police in the Tigris river and handed over to US forces, but it has not yet been identified, a US military spokeswoman said.

She said it was not known whether the body was that of a Bulgarian hostage killed by his captors earlier this week.

The body was found near Baiji, 180 km north of Baghdad, on Wednesday night. "The body had been decapitated. It was dressed in an orange jumpsuit," the spokeswoman said on Thursday.

Video tapes of foreign captives in Iraq have often shown them wearing orange jumpsuits, which are typical of US jails and associated around the world with images of those detained at Guantanamo Bay.

Hindrance

A diplomat at the Bulgarian embassy in Baghdad said he was aware that a body had been discovered, but it was not known whether it was one of the captured Bulgarians. The fact the body was headless hindered identification, he said.

In Sofia, Bulgarian Foreign Minister Solomon Passy said the government had asked for an urgent investigation to identify the body. "At this moment we do not have a confirmation whether it is one of our compatriots," he told Bulgarian television.