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Hostage Bigley 'burial site' claimIraq hostage 'buried near pond after mock trial and sentence'
 A photo of Kenneth Bigley taken when he was being held hostage. RELATED
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YOUR E-MAIL ALERTSBAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The lawyers of a suspected al Qaeda militant now on trial in Turkey said on Saturday their client had revealed that the body of Kenneth Bigley, a British engineer beheaded in Iraq in 2004, had been buried near Falluja. The militant, Syrian-born Louai al Sakka, claims to have taken part in the mock trial and sentencing of Bigley. Lawyer Levent Dogus told Reuters Television the body was buried in a ditch near a pond at the entrance to Falluja, 50 km (35 miles) north of Baghdad, on the road from Nuaimiya. He provided a rough sketch of the location and said it was well-known to local people. Dogus and Sakka's main lawyer, Osman Karahan, also said Bigley's kidnappers had sold the Briton's jeep for $12,000 and distributed the money among the people of Falluja. There was no way of verifying the lawyers' claims. "After the growing demands of the British media and family, we decided to say where the body is located," Karahan said. Bigley's family has appealed to his killers many times to return the body for a formal burial and on Saturday his brother Paul told Sky News that recovering the body for burial was the family's only goal. "Let's hope it's true, because that will then enable us to have a closure in the whole thing," he said. "Whatever we do or say will not bring Ken back alive. All we are hoping is that we can bring his remains home and bury him." Karahan said the kidnappers had decided to execute Bigley after finding technical information on his laptop concerning the U.S. occupying forces in Iraq which they believed showed he had links with them. The kidnappers asked for the release of all women prisoners from Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison in return for Bigley's release, but British Prime Minister Tony Blair rejected their demand, Karahan said. Tears"When Bigley saw Blair's letter (rejecting the abductors' demands) he began to cry. He said 'How cheap a British life is. Okay, kill me then'," Karahan said. Karahan told Reuters Television in a first interview on Thursday that Sakka had been present during the mock trial and sentencing of Bigley, though he did not say whether his client attended the actual execution. Iraq's al Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi assigned Sakka to the Bigley case, Karahan said. In London, the British Foreign Office said in a statement it was following up the claims made by Sakka's lawyers. "Ever since the murder of Ken Bigley, we have continued to do all we can to establish the full circumstances of his death and to bring those responsible to justice," it said. "We urge anyone who has any information about the murder of British nationals in Iraq to contact the appropriate authorities and to contact us so we can keep family members informed." Sakka is on trial charged with masterminding and securing finance for bomb attacks on British and Jewish targets in Istanbul in 2003 which killed more than 60 people. He is believed to have escaped to Iraq after those bombings. Security sources say Sakka, a bomb-making expert, was the top figure of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda in Turkey He was caught in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir in August 2005 as he tried to board a plane for Istanbul under an assumed name. He had undergone plastic surgery. Turkish media have quoted Sakka as saying he had planned to carry out an attack on an Israeli cruise ship visiting Turkey. Sakka's trial opened last month in Istanbul. 
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