[Al Arabiya Latest] British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Wednesday confirmed that two more British hostages held in Iraq had been killed by their captors as an Iraqi official urged the release of the last captive still thought alive.Brown said he believed Peter Moore, a contractor, was still alive, and reiterated his call for the computer consultant to be freed. "I can confirm that on July 20, with great sadness, the government informed two families of those British men kidnapped in Iraq that Alan McMenemy and Alec MacLachlan, two of the three hostages still held, were very likely to be dead," Brown said in a statement.
Of the five men snatched in May 2007 -- Moore and his four security guards -- two were confirmed dead last month. "Four of the hostages are dead," Sami al-Askari, a legislator in the governing Shiite Muslim alliance who is close to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, told reporters. "Two of them have been handed over and there are efforts being made by the government with the abductors to release the others."
Moore and the four security guards were kidnapped in May 2007 in the Iraqi finance ministry, in an audacious operation by around 40 heavily-armed militants posing as security personnel.
The bodies of two other guards, Jason Swindlehurst, 38, and Jason Creswell, 39, were handed over to the British embassy in Baghdad last month. "I and the entire government are committed to doing everything that we can for the release of Peter Moore, whom we still believe to be alive," Brown said.
The families of all five men expressed their dismay in a joint statement and urged the release of any remaining hostages.