145;Pull out by July 20 or we behead hostage146;

8216;8216;The hostage will remain captive and will be treated as a prisoner until the last Filipino soldier leaves Iraq by July 20 8230; or he will be executed,8217;8217; the statement said.

8216;8216;We give the Philippine government an additional 24 hours starting from 11 pm Iraqi time on Saturday to show it is serious about withdrawing its troops.8217;8217;

Manila earlier said the hostage, Angelo De La Cruz, was being brought to a Baghdad hotel following negotiations with militants. Government spokesman Ignacio Bunye said there was no handover. Foreign Secretary Delia Domingo Albert said Manila had already planned to pull out its troops on August 20. The statement was an apparent shift from Manila8217;s previous stance that it would reconsider its deployment then, but government officials said there was no change and that the government would not give in to militants.

On Wednesday, Al Jazeera broadcast a video of a sobbing De La Cruz kneeling in front of three gunmen and said the militants had threatened to behead him if Manila did not pull out its troops within 72 hours.