Two British hostages feared dead after bodies found in Iraq

June 20, 2009 The British government has said it fears that two bodies handed back by the Iraqi authorities are those of two Britons captured in 2007. Foreign Secretary David Miliband said that forensic tests were currently being conducted to determine whether they were indeed those of the hostages.

In May 2007, four security guards and an IT consultant, Peter Moore, were kidnapped at the Ministry of Finance by armed militants of the Islamic Shiite resistance. The kidnappers released a video of the captives, saying that one will be killed if British forces do not withdraw from Iraq.

Miliband said that "we have never speculated on the outcome of this case although we have been working intensively on it, so the overriding feeling today is one of deep sadness and fear. Our immediate thoughts are clearly with the families of the five Britons taken hostage in Baghdad in May 2007."

Foreign Office sources have suggested that the bodies have been dead for several months.