Mutilated body is not Hassan's (C.A.R.E. director)

[wicket]

http://www.theadvertiser.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,11559814%255E401,00.html

FRESH doubts have emerged over the fate of a British aid worker taken hostage in Iraq in October after tests revealed the mutilated body of a Western woman found a fortnight ago was not Margaret Hassan.

The Irish-born Care International director was believed to have been murdered last month after a video released to Arab television network Al-Jazeera showed a blindfolded woman in an orange boiler suit being shot in the head.

The body of a woman in her 50s found in Fallujah days later, with head injuries consistent with those of someone shot at point-blank range, was thought to be that of the 59-year-old.

But dental tests completed on the body this week proved it was not Mrs Hassan. Unsourced claims that the dental records did not match were reported in The Times's Wednesday edition in London.

Care Australia confirmed yesterday the published results were accurate.

[spinbaby]

1. Well...

...the plot thickens.

I hope this isn't false hope and that she turns up unharmed.

[seriousstan]

11. The video showed her being shot in the head

this merely means the mutilated, and as I recall the mutilation was disembowelment, body was not the aid worker's. This just means there is another woman dead that we have no identification for....yet.

[dolo amber]

2. Gah, this woman and her poor family...

:(

[still_one]

3. Typical press

Do NOT trust anything that comes from them until confirmed by reality

[IndianaGreen]

4. If the dental test don't match Margaret Hassan's dental records

who is the victim?

How reliable are Iraqi dental records? In a country devastated by war it would be hard to find records of any kind.

[splat]

5. I saw a Japanese report that the body was a blonde1 n/t

[KingChicken]

7. I also read a report saying a blonde mutilated body was found.

That woman seemed to turn into Hassan after the killing video was aired a day later, but when the story first went out their was no link to Hassan as she was still alive. The media just loves to fill in the gaps by making up crap.

[daleo]

8. Can Iraqis be blonde?

Blonde hair may well occur in the native born population now and again, for all we know.

[Igel]

13. Later reports said brown + graying. n/t

Edited to add:
And blond/redhead appears from time to time. Not often. Whether from invaders, in-migration, indigenous variation from pre-Islamic times, or from slaves (Slavs are frequently blond), dunno.

[wicket]

6. good questions

I hope we find out the answers soon.

[wicket]

15. The dental tests were done in the US

According to this article:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=518&e=10&u=/ap/20041201/ap_on_re_eu/britain_iraq_hassan

The Foreign Office said dental tests conducted in the United States showed the body of a woman of Western appearance, found in Fallujah last month by U.S. Marines, was not Hassan.

[Stand and Fight]

9. Awful...

My God... Can you imagine the emotional hell her family must be going through? First you get the report that your loved one has gone missing and has been kidnapped by others. Then to think that you've lost someone whom you loved deeply and to grieve, cry, grow enraged, and then BEGIN TO accept it -- only to be told, "Well, tests show that the body was not Margaret." That is just absolutely heart wrenching to even read about, because now the family has no sense of closure whatsoever. They've been thrown overboard a ship that rode on crashing waves after having been retrieved from the sea, and now they have been cast back into those dark waters without a foreseeable means to reach harbor... This is just awful. I grieve for these people.

[jobycom]

10. 100,000 tales of grief

Her family must be in Hell. I can't help but wonder how many Iraqi familes don't know the fates of their loved ones, too. Prisoners of the US in Iraq, in Guantanamo, in Afghanistan. Soldiers we captured, soldiers who fled, soldiers our bombs blew into unrecognizable fragments. We are creating thousands of these scenarios for others. I feel sick for each and every one.

[Voltaire99]

12. Hassan's kidnapping moved me in ways...

...that the killing of US mercenaries never could.

Here was a woman who had made her home in another culture, and not merely a home: she gave and gave to it. She was, by all reports, a model human being.

Well might she still be giving aid and succor to the weak and sick were it not for the war of conquest by Bush and Blair.

[wicket]

14. More info here:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=518&e=10&u=/ap/20041201/ap_on_re_eu/britain_iraq_hassan

A mutilated body found in Iraq (news - web sites) is not that of kidnapped aid worker Margaret Hassan, the British government said Wednesday. But the Foreign Office said it continued to believe Hassan had been murdered, although the evidence was not conclusive.

The Foreign Office said dental tests conducted in the United States showed the body of a woman of Western appearance, found in Fallujah last month by U.S. Marines, was not Hassan.

The Iraq director of the aid group CARE International, Hassan, 59, was abducted on her way to work in Baghdad on Oct. 19. On Nov. 16, the Arab satellite station Al-Jazeera said it had received a video showing the execution of a female hostage identified as Hassan.

British officials who watched the tape said they believed the blindfolded woman shown being shot in the head by a masked gunman was Hassan.

[Logansquare]

16. I thought it was a classic Baathist-style murder/mutilation

when I read that the body was dismembered. The Baathists were known for not just killing their victims, but delivering the bodies in pieces, in order to further traumatize and terrorize.