Hopes Wood will be freed unconditionally
22:14 AEST Thu May 26 2005
AAP
Australia's top Muslim cleric has offered to swap places with hostage Douglas Wood despite the federal government's hope his kidnappers will set him free unconditionally.
The Mufti of Australia, Sheikh Taj Aldin Alhilali, has made another video appeal to Mr Wood's captors in Iraq, saying he is willing to take the 63-year-old engineer's place.
The offer was expected to be broadcast on Iraqi TV overnight with the hope it would encourage Mr Wood's abductors to release him.
Mr Wood's family has cautiously welcomed the Mufti's offer.
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said he appreciated the move, but hoped Mr Wood would be released without any conditions attached.
The sheikh's spokesman in Sydney, Keysar Trad, said the mufti had not yet had any response to his offer.
"He said he has made the offer because he is concerned about Mr Wood's health," Mr Trad told AAP.
"He himself has very similar problems and knows how hard it is to get adequate medical help.
"He wants to make sure Mr Wood is treated as humanely as possible."
Mr Wood has heart and blood pressure problems, while the mufti put off having heart surgery in Australia to go to Iraq two weeks ago to try to secure Mr Wood's release.
The mufti left Baghdad last week after making brief contact with the kidnappers and speaking on the phone to a man he believed to be Mr Wood.
He is now waiting at a secret location in the Middle East, hopeful that Mr Wood will soon be set free.
Sheikh Alhilali, who publicised his offer through a statement to the Australian embassy in Iraq, also asked the kidnappers to show video proof the engineer is still alive.
"I announce my sincere readiness to hand myself over to the captors to be a hostage in exchange for the sick Australian citizen, till the conditions of the brotherly captors are met in the way they want," he said.
Mr Downer said the government would continue to work for the unconditional release of Mr Wood.
"In a broad sense we appreciate that Sheikh Alhilali is making an effort to assist with the release of Douglas Wood and we appreciate all efforts that are being made," he said.
"But we don't want to see Australians held hostage full stop and we would like to see the unconditional release of Douglas Wood."
A spokesman for Mr Wood's family said they cautiously welcomed the Mufti's offer.
"The family's view is that anything that can be done towards freeing Douglas is a good thing," he said.
"The sheikh has volunteered to go to Iraq in the first place, and we're watching with interest everything that he does and also whatever the government (emergency response) team does."
Mr Wood, an Australian citizen who had been living in the US, and two Iraqis, were kidnapped in Baghdad about three weeks ago by a rebel group calling itself the Shura Council of the Mujahedeen of Iraq.