UK reaction: British Prime Minister Mr Tony Blair has spoken of his "utter revulsion" at the murder of Mr Ken Bigley and the way in which his kidnappers "played with the situation" following his abduction in Iraq three weeks ago.
Speaking from Chequers last night, a sombre Mr Blair said he felt "desperately sorry for Kenneth Bigley and his family" who had behaved with extraordinary dignity and courage. Buckingham Palace said last night Queen Elizabeth sent a private message of condolence to Mr Bigley's mother.
"I feel utter revulsion at the people that did this, not just at the barbaric nature of the killing but the way, frankly, they have played with the situation over the last few weeks," said Mr Blair. And he declared: "I feel a strong sense, as I hope others do, that the actions of these people, whether in Iraq or elsewhere, should not prevail over people like Kenneth Bigley, who, after all, only wanted to make Iraq and the world a better place."
Mr Blair followed his Foreign Secretary Mr Jack Straw in condemning Mr Bigley's murder only after his family in Liverpool had first confirmed that he had been executed by his captors.
And before travelling to Liverpool to meet the grieving Bigley family, Mr Straw revealed that the British government had exchanged messages with Ken Bigley's kidnappers in the past four days in a final desperate bid to secure his safe release.
At a press conference in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London, Mr Straw gave the first confirmation that a channel of communication had finally been established with the kidnappers after an intermediary contacted the British Embassy in Baghdad.
"It was clearly in Mr Bigley's interests that we should do all we could to make contact," Mr Straw said: "Messages were exchanged with the hostage takers in an attempt to dissuade them from carrying out their threat to kill Mr Bigley. But at no stage did they abandon their demands relating to the release of women prisoners, even though they were fully aware there are no women prisoners in our (British) custody in Iraq."
Mr Straw declined to go into details about the nature of the messages exchanged but said they had been approved by both himself and by the Prime Minister, and were "in line with the public statements which both of us have made."
Mr Straw said Mr Bigley's family in Liverpool and his wife in Thailand had been kept fully aware of the government's communications with the intermediary. He was giving the British government's first reaction to the news of Mr Bigley's murder following a statement in which the Bigley family in Liverpool said they believed the British government "did all it possibly could to secure the release of Ken in this impossible situation."
First reports of his death prompted a despairing charge from his brother Paul in Amsterdam that Mr Blair "has blood on his hands." But the statement on behalf of the family in Liverpool read by Ken Bigley's younger brother Philip said: "We can confirm that the family has received absolute proof that Ken Bigley was executed by his captors. How we, as individuals, handle crises situations will differ from person to person, family member to family member. It is important to be considerate of one another's views and actions. "In that respect the family here in Liverpool believes that our Government did all it possibly could to secure the release of Ken in this impossible situation. It could be that the fate of Ken (and the murdered American hostages) was sealed from day one."
The Conservative leader Mr Michael Howard condemned the kidnappers' "grotesque barbarity" and said his heart went out to the Bigley family in their moment of terrible loss.
"To those who committed this atrocious and despicable act our message is: we shall never give in to blackmail from terrorists," he said.
And as the political establishment closed ranks at least on this policy, the Liberal Democrat spokesman Sir Menzies Campbell said "the harsh brutal truth is that if you give in to this sort of blackmail, the next time you will have to pay a far higher price."