UNITED KINGDOM: Family of released British hostage Peter Moore express their delight

Record ID: 518869

  • Title: UNITED KINGDOM: Family of released British hostage Peter Moore express their delight
  • Date: 31st December 2009
  • Summary: BAGHDAD, IRAQ (FILE) (REUTERS) EXTERIOR OF IRAQI COMPUTER SERVICES INSTITUTE FROM WHICH PETER MOORE WAS KIDNAPPED. THE BUILDING IS ADJACENT TO THE IRAQI FOREIGN MINISTRY BUILDING SIGN GUARDS ON ROOF
  • Embargoed: 15th January 2010 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: United Kingdom
  • Country: United Kingdom
  • Topics: International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVA1GOOEBUKVIV6GZCT6WF19460F
  • Story Text: The father and step-parents of released British hostage Peter Moore are celebrating news of his freedom.
    The father of freed British computer programmer Peter Moore said he was delighted at the news of his son's release after two-and-a-half-years as a hostage in Baghdad.
    Thirty-six-year-old Moore, who was working on contract in Baghdad, was captured with four of his bodyguards from Iraq's finance ministry in 2007 at the height of sectarian bloodshed that killed tens of thousands after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.
    The bodies of three of the bodyguards have since been handed to British authorities. The fate of the fourth, Alan McMenemy, is unconfirmed. British officials believe he is dead.
    Moore's father Graeme said on Wednesday (December 30) he was "absolutely over the moon." He added: "It's just a question now of getting Peter back to us, to his friends, and let him try and pick his life up."
    It has been one of the longest hostage crises involving Britons since several were held captive in Lebanon in the 1980s.
    Moore's stepmother Pauline Sweeney said Moore had told her he did not know why his captors had released him. She said she had been very emotional upon hearing the news. "I just burst into tears and kept asking if it was true, I think," she said. "I couldn't believe I was speaking to him. He sounded really well, was cracking jokes."
    His stepfather, Pauline's husband Fran, said he believed Moore had been well looked after by his captors. He said: "He'd been looked after quite well since last June, I believe. There's still information we're waiting to hear and there's probably a lot we won't here until we actually meet up."
    Moore's birth mother, Avril Sweeney, also spoke of her elation at her son's release.
    His birth parents split up when he was just six months old. When his mother's second marriage failed, Moore chose to be brought up by his stepfather Fran who later married Pauline.
    British officials have in the past said they believed a Shi'ite militant group called Asaib al-Haq, or Leagues of Righteousness, may have been behind the kidnapping.
    Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said Iraq had not been involved in talks to secure Moore's release, but said that a suspected militant, Qais al-Khazali, who is believed to be a senior Asaib al-Haq member, had been transferred on Wednesday from U.S. custody in Iraq to Iraqi authorities.
    Khazali's brother was released from U.S. then Iraqi custody in June. The Iraqi government denied any connection with the British hostage issue, saying that the prisoner release was part of reconciliation efforts after years of bloodshed in Iraq.
    British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said there had been "no substantive concessions" to the hostage-takers and that it was the Iraqi government's steps towards national reconciliation that had laid the foundations for progress in the case.
    He declined to comment when asked if British officials had talked directly to the hostage-takers.
    Britain's foreign office has faced criticism over its handling of the case and its attempts early on to discourage media reporting of the kidnappings.
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