The bodies of two British men taken hostage in Iraq in 2007 and handed over to UK officials in Baghdad late on Friday have been provisionally identified, the British government said on Sunday.
The men were among five Britons seized by an armed Shia militant group from inside a finance ministry building in a raid in the Iraqi capital. The British foreign office said the dead men were “highly likely” to be Jason Creswell, originally from Glasgow in Scotland, and Jason Swindlehurst from northwest England.
“Officials are in close contact with all the families,” it said. “We continue to do everything we can towards the safe release of the other hostages.”
British foreign secretary David Miliband said on Saturday the three other hostages were in “grave danger” after the Iraqi authorities passed the two men’s remains to the British. No details about how they died have been made public. Unconfirmed media reports last year said one of the hostages had killed himself.
Peter Moore, a computer instructor, was kidnapped with four of his bodyguards while working for Canadian security firm GardaWorld. A company spokesman said he was aware of the reports of the confirmation of the two deaths but had no comment.
The hostage-takers have released several videos of the men since their capture. One clip, aired by Dubai’s al-Arabiya television, showed Mr Moore calling for Britain to release nine Iraqis in return for their freedom.
British prime minister Gordon Brown said on Saturday he was “saddened and dismayed” by the men’s deaths. Britain sent about 45,000 soldiers to join the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 to topple former president Saddam Hussein. It now has only about 500 troops in the country.
Former Beirut hostage Terry Waite said the only hope of freeing the remaining hostages lay with the Iraqis. “It is something that is exceptionally difficult for any western negotiator to do, almost impossible,” he told BBC television.
Many men are lured to Iraq by the promise of extremely lucrative contracts, with £500 (€592) a day, tax-free, up for grabs from private security firms. They are drawn to spending a year or so in places like Iraq, working as bodyguards or overseeing convoys.
Most of those who take up the offers are former soldiers, from the elite regiments of the armed forces. They work for private security companies which hold contracts with either Iraqi businesses or government organisations.
The UK foreign office spent more than £148 million on security companies in Iraq in the past three years, the Observer reported yesterday, and contracts worth more than £42 million have been awarded for security work in Afghanistan from the beginning of last year to the end of 2009.
The deaths have proved it is not just soldiers and security workers at risk.
Kenneth Bigley (62), an engineer from Liverpool, was killed in October 2004 in Baghdad, and aid worker Margaret Hassan (59), born in Ireland and raised in London, was murdered later the same year. Peace activist Norman Kember (76) survived a kidnap and was rescued by British forces on March 23rd, 2006. – (PA, Reuters)