An Iraqi militant group has posted on the Internet a video which, it claims, shows the killing of a US security consultant it had abducted earlier this month.
The Islamic Army in Iraq said earlier this month that it had killed the man, identified as Ronald Schultz, because the US government had not fulfilled its demands.
They included freeing all Iraqi prisoners and compensation for Iraqi families.
The videotape showed a blindfolded and handcuffed man on his knees being shot by a machine gun from behind.
The gunman was standing some two metres behind the alleged hostage, who fell to the ground after the shots were fired.
German hostage's driver freed
The driver of former German hostage Susanne Osthoff, who was abducted in northern Iraq with her last month, is no longer in the hands of his kidnappers.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier announced late yesterday that Ms Osthoff, a 43-year-old archaeologist, had been freed earlier in the day.
He said the authorities expected her driver Shalid al-Shimani also to be released.
Ms Osthoff, a convert to Islam who was once married to an Arab man and has lived in Iraq for ten years, was said to be at the German embassy in Baghdad and in sound health.
Her family said they did not know when she would return to Germany, where her 12-year-old daughter lives.
