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DNA tests are being carried out on the mutilated body of western woman found in Fallujah to discover if it is that of the British aid worker Margaret Hassan.
The torso, which was disembowelled and had its arms and legs cut off, was found in the Iraqi city by American soldiers last Sunday.
The body was reported to have been flown out of Iraq for the DNA tests and British officials in Baghdad said they were urgently trying to discover its identity.
The husband and family of Mrs Hassan, 59, said this week that they believe that she is dead after a video emerged of a western woman hostage being shot in the head.
Mrs Hassan, who was the Iraqi director of the charity Care International and had lived in the country for 30 years, was kidnapped at gunpoint in Baghdad on Oct 19.
It was initially thought that the body found in Fallujah could be that of an Iraqi-Polish woman, who was also abducted last month, because it was described as having blonde hair.
But a photographer who took pictures of the body claimed that the hair was darker than initially reported. It was also wrapped in a dark robe similar to that Mrs Hassan was last seen wearing, it was claimed.
John Howard, the Australian prime minister, told his parliament that the body had been identified as Mrs Hassan before later retracting his comments.
"The body found in Fallujah appears to have been Margaret's and the video of the execution of a Western woman appears on all the available information to have been genuine," he told Australian MPs.
He later refused to say which body he was referring to and said that Mrs Hassan's body had not been returned to her family.
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