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| Britain |
| Baghdad body handed over to Britain identified |
| 2009-09-04 |
| A body delivered to the British Embassy in Baghdad has been identified as that of Alec MacLachlan, one of five Britons kidnapped in Iraq three years ago. Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced "with deepest regret" yesterday that the 30-year-old security guard was dead. "My thoughts and I believe the thoughts of the whole country are with the MacLachlan family," he said. MacLachlan was kidnapped along with Alan McMenemy, Peter Moore, Jason Creswell and Jason Swindlehurst by a group of men posing as security forces and government workers at the Iraqi Finance Ministry in Baghdad on May 29, 2007. The bodies of Creswell and Swindlehurst were handed over in June. Moore is believed to still be alive, the Foreign Office said in a statement posted on its Web site. It is Britain's longest-running hostage crisis since 1991 when Church envoy Terry Waite was freed after being held for five years by the Islamic Jihad Organization in Lebanon. Moore's father, Graeme Moore, has accused the government of not doing enough to free the men seized in Baghdad, saying in a June 22 commentary in the Daily Mail newspaper the Foreign Office "had been useless." Moore was working as a technology expert for U.S. management consultants BearingPoint Inc, and the others were employed as his bodyguards by Montreal-based GardaWorld. Several videos have been released by the kidnappers, a group calling itself the Islamic Shiite Resistance of Iraq that has called for nine imprisoned associates to be freed. Creswell and Swindlehurst died from gunshot wounds. It wasn't immediately clear how McMenemy had died. His body was identified within 24 hours of the Foreign Office announcing it had been delivered to the U.K. embassy. British authorities are working with Iraqi officials to secure the return of Moore and McMenemy and to bring the kidnappers to justice, Brown said. "That is what every family should expect of us and that is what we are going to do." I'm not sure if it's appropriate to use the image of military funeral for the return of a non-military body. If it isn't, please feel free to delete or change it. I deleted it. AoS. |
| Posted by:ryuge |