FOOTAGE showing a Briton taken hostage in Iraq nearly a year ago was broadcast yesterday, along with demands for the release of nine insurgents held by British forces.
The hostage, who has been identified as Peter Moore, was kidnapped from the Iraqi finance ministry by heavily armed men in police uniforms in May 2007, along with four of his British security guards.
They were driven away in a convoy of 19 four
-wheel-drive vehicles towards the Shiite enclave of Sadr City.
The hostage, who worked for BearingPoint, a US-based management consulting firm, appeared in a black and white tracksuit with a beard and seemed to be in good health.
In a previous video, broadcast by al-Arabiya on 4 December, the kidnappers threatened to kill the men unless British troops were pulled out of Iraq within ten days. That video showed a different hostage flanked by gunmen.
In the video, Mr Moore could be heard stating his kidnappers' demands.
"I've been held here for nearly eight months now," he said, adding that he came from Lincoln.
He also called on Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, to accede to the kidnappers' demand for a trade of prisoners. "It's as simple as that, it's a simple exchange of people," he said.
The al-Arabiya network said on its website that it had received the video from "the Islamic Shiite Resistance in Iraq". The group was offering the five Britons in exchange for nine of its men who had been held by British forces for the past year.
The UK government yesterday condemned the release of the video. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) said the film would be "greatly distressing" to the men's families and called on the kidnappers to release them immediately.
A spokeswoman for the FCO said: "Our thoughts are with them at this difficult time.
"We urge those holding the group to release them immediately. We are in close contact with the Iraqi authorities and doing everything we can to try and secure a swift release."
She added: "We ask all those who may be able to influence those holding the five men to make every effort they can to secure the safety and the release of the hostages.
"We again call directly on those holding these men to release them. No matter what the cause, holding hostages is never justified and is never a way of making progress on any issue."
At the time of the kidnapping, Iraqi officials blamed the Mahdi Army, the feared militia under the control of the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
It was believed to be a retaliatory attack for the killing by British forces earlier of the militia's commander in Basra.
However, Sadr's followers have denied the kidnapping and suspicion has fallen on splinter groups which the United States believes are controlled by Iran.
The other four abducted were security workers for the Montreal-based firm GardaWorld.
Meanwhile, a British journalist working for the US television network CBS, kidnapped along with his interpreter on 10 February, was still in custody in the southern port city of Basra and in good health, an Iraqi official said yesterday.
The interpreter was handed over to authorities three days later, but the journalist, who has not been identified, remains in captivity.
The full article contains 557 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
