BERLIN (AFX) - The German foreign ministry said it had received a new video believed to be of two German hostages who have been held in Iraq since late January.
News agency DPA said the video was posted on an Islamic Internet website, probably on March 28, and showed Thomas Nitzschke pleading with the German government to save him and fellow hostage Rene Braeunlich.
Nitzschke and Braeunlich, 32, are both engineers and were kidnapped near the Baiji oil refinery in northern Iraq on January 24.
N-tv news channel on Sunday screened a freezeframe from the video which appeared to show Nitzschke and Brauenlich, both wearing beards.
Brauenlich's mother Ingeborg told reporters that she had been informed by the foreign ministry of the video.
Until now, the engineers' captors had released three videos of them.
In the first, released three days after the kidnapping, the group identified themselves as members of Ansar al-Tawheed wal Sunnah (Followers of Unity and Prophetic Tradition) and showed the Germans surrounded by armed men.
They subsequently issued two videos in which they threatened to execute them unless Berlin closed its embassy in Baghdad and ended cooperation with the Iraq government.
The German government has rejected the kidnappers' demands.
ARD television in late March said the German government had received indications that the men were still alive but had failed to establish direct contact with the kidnappers.
The television channel cited unnamed government sources as saying the captors were demanding a ransom. newsdesk@afxnews.com afp/hjp COPYRIGHT Copyright AFX News Limited 2005. All rights reserved. The copying, republication or redistribution of AFX News Content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of AFX News. AFX News and AFX Financial News Logo are registered trademarks of AFX News Limited
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