Bulgaria asked to identify body found in river

A decapitated body in an orange jumpsuit was discovered in the Tigris River north of Baghdad, the US military said today.

The identity of the body, discovered by Iraqi police on Wednesday night north west of the city of Beiji, was not known, the military said. Police turned the body over to the US military for identification.

There were suspicions the body could belong to a Bulgarian driver taken hostage recently and slain. The Bulgarian government said fingerprints from the body had been sent to Bulgaria for identification.

Militant groups here have repeatedly taken foreign contractors hostage, threatening to kill them if their governments did not pull their troops out or accede to other demands. US businessman Nicholas Berg and South Korean translator Kim Sun-il were wearing orange garments in videos showing their deaths.

A militant group affiliated with Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi said on Wednesday it had killed a Bulgarian hostage. Video broadcast on Al-Jazeera showed one of two Bulgarian hostages, later identified as Georgi Lazov, kneeling before three masked men.

The television station said the rest of the video, which it declined to air, showed the man being killed. His body had not been recovered.

“We know a body has been found, but it is not identified yet,” Bulgarian Foreign Minister Solomon Pasi told reporters. “We have contacted the relevant authorities in Iraq to perform an identification in conformity with the necessary procedures.”

The militants had also threatened to kill the second Bulgarian hostage if its demand for the United States to release Iraqi detainees was not met.

Speaking about the second hostage, Pasi said: “The government has the duty to work on the assumption that he is alive, but the hope is diminishing with every hour.”

Al-Zarqawi’s group earlier claimed responsibility for beheading Berg and Kim. Berg’s decapitated body was found near a highway overpass in Baghdad. Kim’s body was found between Baghdad and Fallujah.