LONDON: Two more hostages from a group of Britons kidnapped in Baghdad two years ago are “very likely” dead, leaving only one whose fate remains unclear, reports said Wednesday.
The Foreign Office told the families of Alan McMenemy and Alec MacLachlan, among five Britons kidnapped in May 2007, that they believed they were dead last week, the BBC and Sky News television reported.
The bodies of two other guards, Jason Swindlehurst, 38, and Jason Creswell, 39, were handed over to the British embassy in Baghdad last month. The fate of the other hostage, British computer consultant Peter Moore, is unknown.
Moore and the four security guards were kidnapped in the Iraqi finance ministry, in an audacious operation by around 40 heavily-armed militants posing as security personnel.
A Foreign Office spokeswoman could not confirm the latest reports. “We don’t discuss the operational details of individual cases. We remain extremely concerned for the safety of the hostages and we continue to work intensively for their release,” she said.
