Kidnapped reporter shown begging for her life on Iraq video

An Italian journalist seized 13 days ago from a street near Baghdad University has begged Italy to pull its troops out of Iraq in a video delivered to the office of a foreign news agency. Giuliana Sgrena, 56, the veteran correspondent of Italy's independent communist daily Il Manifesto, pressed her palms together in prayer, tears rolling down her cheeks, as she made her plea.

An Italian journalist seized 13 days ago from a street near Baghdad University has begged Italy to pull its troops out of Iraq in a video delivered to the office of a foreign news agency. Giuliana Sgrena, 56, the veteran correspondent of Italy's independent communist daily Il Manifesto, pressed her palms together in prayer, tears rolling down her cheeks, as she made her plea.

"People are dying every day, thousands of people are in prison, children, the elderly, women are raped, people die because they have nothing to eat, no electricity, no water," she said. "I beg everyone, all those who have voted with me against the war, against the occupation, please help me, these people should not suffer any more ... Please help me, nobody should come to Iraq any more ... not even journalists."

She went on to appeal to her partner, Pier Luigi Scolari: "Pier, help me. You have always been by my side in all my battles ... Show all the pictures I have taken of the Iraqis, of the children hit by cluster bombs ... help me to save my life."

The video, delivered yesterday morning and shown repeatedly on Italian television, was the first hard evidence that Ms Sgrena is still alive.

There was no indication of when it was made. It was released on the day that Italy's senate debated the continued presence of Italy's 3,200 troops in Nasiriyah. The left has united round a call to pull out the Italian troops but, given the ruling coalition's majority, an extension of the Iraq mandate was a foregone conclusion.

Gabriele Polo, editor-in-chief of Il Manifesto said of the video, "It's pretty dramatic. She looks very tired and worn down and in certain moments desperate, but the good news is that she's alive and physically okay. It's a very important indication that negotiations towards her release are a possibility."

The journalist was filmed alone, not surrounded by heavily armed men in masks. There was no flag behind her, only the gnomic and previously unknown slogan "Mujahideen without borders". She was not dressed as a prisoner but wore a blouse of Islamic green.

Luciana Castellina, one of the newspaper's founders, said, "The first part of what she said, speaking about women and children wounded by cluster bombs, sounded exactly like her - these are just the sort of things she writes about. But then she made an appeal to her partner, and that sounded out of character, as if she had been indoctrinated. And, of course, the stuff about pulling the troops out is what every hostage has said. With Berlusconi's government they obviously know it's not going to happen."

Despite the ideological gulf between Il Manifesto and the centre-right government, journalists on the paper say they are satisfied with the government's commitment to negotiations.

Several Italian hostages have been murdered in Iraq and several others released. Two aid workers in Baghdad, Simona Pari and Simona Torretta, were released last September after three weeks. It was rumoured that a ransom had been paid.