Alan McMenemy: final Iraq hostage still missing
Updated on 26 January 2010
Despite the joy of Peter Moore's release kidnappers are still said to be holding the last of the five British hostages captured in Iraq - although it is unclear whether Alan McMenemy is still alive.
Alan McMenemy is still missing two and a half years after he and his colleagues were taken captive in May 2007.
The 34-year-old, from Glasgow, was taken at gunpoint along with five other Britons in Baghdad. He was the leader of a four-man bodyguard team protecting the only known survivor of the hostage crisis, IT expert Peter Moore, when gunmen stormed the Iraqi Finance Ministry in broad daylight.
Mr McMenemy was last seen alive in a hostage video broadcast in July 2008 by his captors - believed to be an Iraqi group called The League of the Righteous. The father-of-two appealed to the British government to take action to allow his to return to family in Scotland.
The bodies of fellow security guards Jason Cresswell and Jason Swindlehurst were handed over to the authorities in June last year. The hostage takers also said that the remaining guards, Alec Maclachlan and Alan McMenemy, had also been killed. Alec Maclachlan's body was returned to his family in September but little has been heard of Mr McMenemy since.
The Foreign Office have believed for some time that Mr McMenemy has been killed by his captors but earlier this month Iraqi officials said they still hoped that he was alive.
An Iraqi government spokesman, Dr Ali al-Dabbagh, told Channel 4 News that Mr McMenemy's death could not be confirmed.
"We are still waiting and we hope that he will be back to his family, back to the UK," he said earlier this month.
"We call on all the kidnappers to release him as soon as possible."
Peter Moore is the only one of the five men taken hostage to have been released alive. He returned to the UK in December.
Reports have suggested that an American decision to hand over Qais al Khazaali (said to be the leader of The League of the Righteous) to Iraqi authorities led to the release of Peter Moore.
The family of Jason Swindlehurst, one of the bodyguards shot dead by the hostage takers, have since said they want to know why the alleged deal could not have happened earlier in time to save their son.
"Why couldn't they have had five lads come back as apposed to one?" Mr Swindlehurst's father said.
