Iraqi gets life for slaying aid worker

BAGHDAD, June 3 (UPI) -- An Iraqi insurgent accused of kidnapping and slaying a British woman was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison.

Baghdad's central criminal court Tuesday found Ali Lutfi Jassar al-Rawi, 36, guilty in the 2004 abduction and murder of British aid worker Margaret Hassan, 59, head of the humanitarian organization Care International and a critic of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, The Times of London reported.

Al-Rawi denied any involvement in the crime, retracting a confession he wrote out last year in which he admitted participating in Hassan's kidnapping as part of the Twentieth Revolution Brigade, the newspaper said. In the retracted confession, Al-Rawi, an architect fluent in English, reportedly said he questioned the British woman several times during the three weeks she was held captive before her slaying.

Investigators said in court the gang shot Hassan twice in the head, burying her in the Hay al-Amil area of southern Baghdad, the newspaper reported.